I'M SO GLAD I DID MY LAUNDRY!
by Chuwei
Summary: How on earth is laundry and Naruto connected? Well, read to find out. Konoha Squad 7 has fell victim to a strange jutsu and it's up to them to save the world! The only thing that can stop them...is their own stupidity. Almost all main characters featured!
1. Vital Naruto Japanese

Vital Naruto Japanese terms

**Anosa**: "Ano" means something like "um" or "uhh". This is a phrase that Naruto uses to start his sentences alot. It's basically an attention-getting idiom that is similar to "Hey" or "Hey, so..." in English. 

**-san**: term of respect added after people's names, equivialent to our "Mr, Miss, Mrs, Ms," etc. It can be added after both female and male names. Basically, you add it after the name of anyone you should be polite to (friend's parents, someone older than you, a stranger, an old man, etc.) You never add it after your own name. 

**-sama**: higher term of respect added after people's names. You'd add this after a priest's or mayor's or god's or king's or the name of anyone else of high prestige, or simply to anyone who you respect deeply. Can be added after both female and male names. You never add it after your own name. 

**-chan**: suffix added to little children's names or to your friend's name or anyone who is very dear and close to you. Unless it's a kid, you usually don't add it after a boy's name, unless you want to be sickingly sweet. You never add it after your own name, unless you're some kid who doesn't know better and is trying to act cute by speaking in third person. 

**-kun**: suffix added after a male of equal or lower rank than you. There really isn't an English equivalent, so don't ask for one. For some reason, Kakashi also adds this after Sakura's name from time to time, although I don't know why. You never add it after your own name. 

**-kage**: means "shadow", a suffix added to the name of the best Ninja in the village.   
**Hokage**: Fire Shadow (leader of the Hidden Village of Leaf in the Fire country. Ho is a pronouciation for Japanese "fire".);   
**Kazekage**: Wind Shadow (leader of the Hidden Village of Sand);   
**Mizukage**: Water Shadow (leader of the Hidden Village of Mist);   
**Tsuchikage**: Earth Shadow (leader of the Hidden Village of Stone);   
**Raikage**: Lightening Shadow (leader of the Hidden Village of Cloud). 

**Kage Bunshin, Kage Bunshin no Jutsu**: Literally, "Shadow Clone". Translated as "Shadow Replication Technique." Is a forbidden Jounin-level technique where instead of illusionary clones, actual clones that can cause damage are created and the jutsu caster's strength is divided evenly among all the clones, so it's impossible to tell which is the original. However, once hit with an attack, the shadow clone will disappear. 

**Kunai**: A small metal handheld throwing dagger commonly used by Ninjas. 

**Kunoichi**: female ninja(s) 

**Henge, Henge no Jutsu**: means "transform". This technique is only illusionary, though, and does not create an actual body. 

**Jutsu**: technique, skill. Also spelled _jyutsu_. 

**Ninjutsu**: Ninja skill, Ninja technique. Also spelled _ninjyutsu_. 

**Ninpou**: Same as Ninjutsu, except it takes on a closer meaning to "Ninja magic" or "Ninja Spell". 

**Neechan**: (contrary to what it looks like, it's actually pronounced "neh-chan".) Older sister, also used for any girl older than you, but isn't old enough to be called "Auntie". The more formal, polite way is oneesan or neesan, "oneechan" or "neechan" makes it more affectionate and casual. 

**Niichan**: (_This_ one is pronounced "nee-chan" ^-^) Older brother, also used for any guy older than you, but isn't old enough to be called "Uncle". The more formal, polite way is oniisan or niisan, "oniichan" or "niichan" makes it more affectionate and casual. 

**ne**: Attention getter, similar to "hey". When used at the end of a sentence it invites agreement, like "isn't it?" "shouldn't it?" or "right?" It can be dragged out for emphasis or just to be annoying. 

**Na**: At the end of a sentence, it's a substitute for "ne" for guys, since it's usually agreed that using "ne" a lot at the end of sentences is a feminine thing. 

**Maa**: means something similar to "Well...." Kakashi says this a lot. You can use this to hedge or buy time when you don't want to answer something directly, as well. 

**Ma ni atta**: an expression that means "Just in time" 

**O-** : When added in front of certain terms, the term becomes more formal and more polite. E.g. "O-neesan", "O-niisan", "O-kaasan" (mother), "O-tousan" (father), "O-machi kudasai" (please wait). 

**Jiji**: Slang/casual term for "old man/geezer"; as you can see, not a very polite term. 

**Shuriken**: A sharpened four-pointed metal star, a common Ninja throwing weapon. 

**Sensei**: Teacher, mentor, tutor. You're supposed to add this after your teacher's name for a term of respect instead of saying "Mr/Mrs. " like Americans do. It doesn't matter if the person is your teacher or not, if you know someone's a teacher, it's alright to go ahead and call him/her "Sensei". 

**Sharingan**: Not an actual Japanese word. If you don't know what it is, you obviously haven't watched/read Naruto, so why are you bothering to read THIS? 

**Sukebe**: pervert. [_Note: "Dou-sukebe" = "BIG-pervert"_.] 

**NAMES**

**Uzumaki Naruto**: You know that round, white, soft, squishy, imitation fish-like things you can often find in Japanese Ramen or noodles? That's Naruto. Uzumaki means "swirl". If you eat ramen a lot you'll notice that a lot of the imitation fish Naruto stuff has a pink swirl on them. A very interesting name. 

**Haruno Sakura**: Haru means "Spring" and Sakura means "Cherry Blossom" in Japanese; so, her entire name could mean "Cherry Blossom of Spring". 

**Uchiha Sasuke**: In Japanese, "Uchi_wa_" means fan. Sasuke has a picture of a fan on the back of his shirt... Sasuke itself is just a common Japanese name...especially for samurai warriors... 

**Hatake Kakashi**: Hatake means "dry field" and Kakashi means "scarecrow". Crazy guy, crazy name, it suits. 

**Umino Iruka**: Umi means "Sea" or "Ocean" and iruka means "Dolphin"; so, his entire name could mean "Dolphin of the Sea". 

**Yuuhi Kurenai**: Yuuhi means "setting sun". The kanji for "Kurenai" is the character for "Red". 

**Ebisu**: I have no idea about this one. But if it's any consolation to you, "Ebi" means "shrimp".... 


	2. Chapter 1: Complaints Of A Teenager

_Disclaimer: If I owned the characters in Naruto, I'd be dead of happiness and not here at my computer typing. _

A/N: First attempt at actually writing out a Naruto fanfiction rather than composing it out to bloom and wither in my head. So, please don't be too harsh with the reviewing.   


The sixteen-year old glared dully at the basket of laundry that refused to clean themselves. Of course, that would have impossible as they were a pile of inanimate pieces of clothing--make that inanimate pieces of _dirty _clothing--but it didn't prevent her from wishing that they would magically clean themselves and spare her from doing the tedious chore. She sighed. _I'm a teenager, for Chrissake! Doing the laundry would waste approximately one hour and fifteen minutes of my time, when I could be playing video games, or reading comics, or making myself a nice snack, or going for a quick shopping trip, or the movies, or_-- 

Before she could list all the various activities she would rather be doing, the carelessly-placed laundry basket tipped over and spilled all over the floor, disrupting her train of thought. 

"GAH!!" she rolled off the couch (less energy required) and shuffled over to the laundry basket, scowling, and shoved the spilled laundry back into the basket in one sweeping movement (easier than picking up each item of clothing and placing it back into the basket). It would probably suit her lazy nature better if she wore fewer clothes so she wouldn't have to do the laundry as often, but as it was, she was considered to be quite stylish, even by adults, and changed outfits often. The end result? A whole lotta laundry. 

A quick glance at the clock showed that it was nearly six o'clock. Her mom would be back around seven-thirty and she had to get the laundry done before that time, or earn a lecture that would waste another half-hour of her life. With a resigned sigh, she slipped on a pair of sandals and picked up the laundry, grumbling. Balancing the basket on her hip, she went out, locked the door to the apartment, and headed towards the community laundry center. 

* * *

Three wilted-looking kids stood on a bridge. One of them, a black-haired boy with sharp eyes, stood a little distance apart from the other two, a short blonde boy dressed in an eye-smarting shade of orange and a green-eyed girl with hair an equally eye-smarting shade of pink. The three stood in an extended period of silence. 

A bird flew by overhead. Crickets chirped. A duck swam under the bridge. 

"Ne..." the blonde kid spoke up finally, weariness written on every part of his face. "Sakura-chan....How long have we been waiting now?" 

The pink-haired girl called Sakura moaned. "I don't know, Naruto...but it's been....over six hours at least........." She groans. "I think he broke the record this time..." 

"What was the last record?" asked the blonde boy tiredly. 

"Five hours, twenty-seven minutes, and forty-three seconds," the black-haired boy muttered out loud. 

The other two turned to stare at him oddly. _W-wow....I never knew Sasuke-kun was so keenly aware of the time..._ thought Sakura. _Whenever we're waiting he always seemed to have his thoughts on something else..._

Naruto sank to the ground in defeat. "I think I'm gonna faint from starvation....I didn't get time to eat breakfast...uggh! WHY did I even bother to rush here this morning, anyway???" he demanded indignantly, then sunk back down to the ground. "Ugh...I give up...I don't even have the energy to get mad anymore..." 

In the meantime, Sasuke had been warily watching Sakura, who had been shaking silently while Naruto had been talking. 

"UGH! I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!!" she finally exploded, shaking her fists in the air. "I swear, unless he has a REALLY GOOD reason, when Kakashi-sensei finally shows up I'm going to--" 

A poof of smoke suddenly appeared on the railing of the bridge, which was quickly replaced by a gray-haired ninja holding an orange-book labeled _Icha Icha Paradise_. "Hello, ladies and gentlemen...I ran into an enchanted princess trapped in a guise of a crane along the way, so..." 

Three weary and extremely skeptical faces stared him down. 

The masked Jounin scratched his head. "I guess you don't believe me, huh..." 

Naruto leaped up and stabbed an accussing finger at his mentor, sputtering with rage. "Y-Y-YOU!!! Your excuses just get LAMER and LAMER everytime!!!" 

Kakashi sighed. "Well, at least we have an interesting mission today..." 

At that, his students brightened up somewhat. "Well, well??? What is it what is it??!" Naruto was the first to ask. 

"The Hokage's grandaughter was out hiking yesterday and she lost her favorite book somewhere on the mountains. You guys get to find it." 

In unision, Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke sighed and hung their heads in defeat, in part at their own naivete. In theory, they should have been used to Kakashi's twisted sense of humor by now. They sighed. _This is going to be a long day..._


	3. Chapter 2: Naruto, Number 1 Troublemaker

_Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, I would be deliriously and estactically foaming from the mouth on the floor right now. Which would make typing in front of the computer screen an impossibility. _

A good thing about living on the first floor in apartment C was that the community laundry center was only a short walk away. Each apartment had a slight advantage; apartment C was closest to the laundry center, apartment A was closest to the community pool, and apartment B was--well, it was just in the middle, neither far nor near to the laundry center and the pool. 

Ignoring the paved cement path, she blatantly trudged across the lawn with the "DO NOT STEP ON GRASS" sign in the shortest possible route towards the gray one-story building that was the Community Laundry Center. Upon entering, she headed for the nearest available washing machine and proceeded to dump in her clothes.   
While doing so, she accidentally overheard a part of the conversation between two of her neighbors. She recognized them as the lady from apartment C, number 110, and another shorter, squatter but also Asian woman, from apartment B. They were conversing in Japanese, and she automatically began to listen in to the now half-familiar foriegn language. Hey, her Japanese teacher had told her to get some practice over summer--this was as good a way as any, and besides, it wasn't as if she was listening in on some top-secret meeting. 

"I think that someone may be going through the laundry when no one's here," one of them seemed to be saying to the other. "Just last week, my nine-year-old daughter told me she accidentally left her pokemon wallet and her Harry Potter book among her clothes, but when we checked afterwards, it was gone." 

"I know what you mean!" The other exclaimed. "Even though none of the _clothes_ were actually missing, there's always _something_ that disappears. First it was a gold fountain pen my husband left in his shirt pocket. Then it was my son's retainers. If it was just that, then I would have thought they just misplaced it and thought that they had left it in their clothes, but yesterday, I lost my fine gauze _curtains_!" 

"Your _curtains_?" the first asked incredulously. "Which machine were you using?" 

"The thirteenth, the one in the corner. I figure if anyone planned to vandalize the washing machines they'd go for the ones nearest the entrance, as all thieves are lazy bums anyway" --Here, the girl snorted in derision-- "So I always use the one in the corner if it's not taken." 

"Maybe it's something wrong with the machine..." the first neighbor offered tentatively. "See, I was using that one also..." 

"--But _curtains??_" 

By now, she had finished dumping in all her laundry and prepared to head out. As everyone else seemed to be paranoid and avoided using the machines and dryers near the entrance, the machine she used was still quite new, and always worked fine. She hid a smirk as she walked back out, leaving the two middle-aged women to cluck their tongues and gossip over everyday events they way middle-aged women do.

* * *

"This _sucks_." 

"Quit complaining. The sooner you find the book, the sooner you can go home..." Kakashi said unconcernedly from the branch of a nearby tree. He was still reading Icha Icha Paradise, while his students roamed about the mountain path searching for the book of the Hokage's grandaughter. 

Sakura didn't say anything, but secretly she agreed with Naruto. Even babysitting the Mayor's son would have been nicer than this.   
They had been on the mountain for over an hour, looking for a tattered green book titled "The Hairy Potterer" or something, that had more than 300 pages and was supposedly the Hokage's granddaughter's favorite book.   
"Isn't the Hokage-sama's granddaughter a little too young to be reading a 300-page book?" she asked, wading through a patch of waist-high grass near a cliff in order to inspect the ground they hid. While brushing aside some swordgrass she accidentally cut her hand on the edge of a leaf, and inwardly cursed the annoying kid. _Stupid brat! What kind of a kid brings a book to the mountains while hiking, anyway?!!_

Kakashi turned a lazy eye to his only female student. He suspected that she wasn't exactly thinking kind and charitible thoughts about the little girl whose book they were looking for, but he didn't voice his suspicions. "Well....she's only two years old. The book was actually found on this same mountain one day, and her mother brought it home and read it to her...apparantly, it's a weird book about strange stuff that nobody understands, but she likes it." 

Naruto frowned. "Huh? ...'strange stuff'? What kind of 'strange stuff' is it, exactly?" he asked suspiciously. "Are you saying they let her read perverted books like the one you're reading??" 

Kakashi gave him a repreminding glare. "For your information, this happens to be a very GOOD book. But no, they're not reading the IchaPara series to the little girl...The book we're searching for is about...." he paused, stratching the Konoha forehead protector that covered his left eye thoughtfully. "It's about a boy who tries to find some soldier's stone with a broomstick......something like that," he said, shrugging. "As I said, it's a totally weird book but the girl refuses to go to sleep without reading it. I heard that they had to use sedatives on her last night, so there's pressure on us to find it as soon as possible....." as he spoke, he scanned over the surrounding area, noting that Sasuke was nowhere in sight. Before he could become concerned, though, the missing boy's voice came trailing up from further down the steep cliffside. 

"Over here. I think I've found something..." Sasuke's voice called up. 

His teammates and teacher followed his voice down the cliff, until they reached a small narrow ledge hidden by the overhang. The ledge led to a small dark cave. 

"In here." came Sasuke's voice again. 

They stooped and entered the cave to find the spiky black-haired boy waiting for them inside, his arms crossed. In one of his hands was the book they had been searching for. 

"Ahhh. Good job, Sasuke," Kakashi praised happily. His eye crinkled into a merry little curve that showed he was smiling under his mask. "You found the Hotty Pear book..." 

Sasuke peered at the book's dirty and tattered cover. "Harr-y Pot-ter," he corrected. "It was thrown on the ground near the entrance of the cave. I don't see how it could have fallen there. Obviously, someone took it and threw it here on purpose...and I found some more strange things over there." He jerked his head torwards the back of the cave. 

"Why would anyone throw the book here on purpose?" Naruto muttered. Curious, he snatched the book from Sasuke's hands, earning a glare from his rival, which he ignored. Flipping through the book carelessly, he picked random words and read them. "Dumbodore...Maddam Poofy? ...What the hell? This book is a total piece of junk!" he declared. "There's nothing in here that makes sense, and WHAT the hell are all those people doing with those broomsticks??" The only reason he could come up with was that all the people in the book were cleaning fanatics, but that didn't make sense, either. 

Kakashi just shrugged. "I already told you it was a weird book. The little girl is the only one who likes it, or else they would have thrown it away when they found it a week ago. Anyhow...as long as we're here, we might as well check out what else Sasuke found...." 

"Hn." Naruto surrendered the book to Kakashi-sensei and put his hands behind his head, unimpressed. 

They moved in a little deeper inside the cave, where in the dim light they discovered a small, perfectly round hole set smack in the middle of the cave floor. The hole was large enough for a child or slim adult to fit through, and seemed to be very deep. Around the hole was littered various oddities. 

Kakashi bent down to inspect one of them. "Hmm.....a gold pen...." 

Sakura picked up a flimsy strip of cloth and inspected it. "This looks like some sort of curtain..." 

Naruto shook a round canvas pouch, producing a metal clinking noise. "Some weird kiddie toy thing with a demented-looking yellow rabbit on it..." 

Sasuke went over to take a look. "That's not a rabbit..." 

Sakura came over also get a look at it. "It's some weird creature with black-tipped ears and a jaggy tail..." 

While his students marveled over and amused themselves with the assortment of strange things inside the cave, Kakashi stepped back out and surveyed the area around him. _This isn't part of the secret trails the Anbu use,_ he thought. He turned to find Sasuke standing at the entrance of the cave. "Sasuke, did you go down the hole in the cave before we got here?" he inquired of his student. 

Sasuke shook his head. "No." 

The Jounin nodded. "Good, because I--" 

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!" 

--a shriek of horror interrupted him. 

Alarmed, Kakashi and Sasuke immediately rushed back in to find Sakura alone and frantically peering down the hole, calling Naruto's name. 

"Sakura?! What happened?" Kakashi demanded. 

"I-I-I-I-I-I...." the girl had her head in her hands and was swaying from side to side in a state of helplessness. "I-I mean, Naruto was still trying to figure out that thing he found, so I suggested that he try to open it...so he did but....it suddenly burst open and all...all these things came flying out, and one of them rolled near the hole, and-and Naruto tried to catch it and....and the next thing I knew...." she trailed off, looking at the hole. Despite the fact that she was unable to do anything to prevent the disaster, inside she couldn't help but want to scream _"Naruto you big IDIOT!!"_. 

Kakashi held back a sigh. Crouching near the edge of the hole, he peered down into darkness. "Naruto!" He called out. He put his ear to the edge and listened hard for any reply, but there was no sound except for a distant kind of whirring noise. "Naruto?" He called again. His voice echoed repeatedly down the hole, but there was no answer. _#$!..._ He muttered under his breath, then turned to his two remaining (and more sensible) students. "As much as I'm tempted to leave that moron down there to repent his idiocy, it's getting pretty late already," he annoued. "So, I guess there's no choice for us but to go down and get him." 

Not waiting for them to reply, he grabbed first Sasuke then Sakura and threw them down the hole, jumping in quickly after them.

* * *

_A/N: Ehh...did everyone get the pikachu joke?_   



	4. Chapter 3: As Long as Crossdressing Isn'...

_Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, I would be writhing on the floor spewing my guts out in joy and generally in a state that would render me incapable of writing fanfiction._   


_7:00 PM_

Naruto sat up with a lurch and immediately banged his head on the ceiling. He had expected to be smashed to peices, if not severely bruised and wounded, after such a long fall down the dark tunnel. During the fall, he had felt like someone turned him inside out, smashed him, and then streched him out into a thin sheet before tearing him in two and then squishing him back together. He had believed that it was the end of him. However, now he found himself very much intact and alive, albeit slightly cramped. 

Shaking his head in effort to clear his scrambled mind and blurry vision, he looked around and found himself sitting inside a small, rectangular metal box with a large round window in front of him. Loud, churning, angry animal-like sounds roared beside and below him. His first thought was, _I'm caged! They're going to pen me up like an animal and put me in a zoo!!_

Wild with fear, he threw himself against the window and was very surprised when the window opened outwards with no resistance at all, and he ended up falling with a splat onto the floor. 

The blonde boy blinked several times before regaining his senses and picking himself up. Now that he was no longer trapped inside the box, he lost all fear and caution and surveyed his surroundings in obvious puzzlement. The room he was in had two entrances, both wide open, and it seemed to be full of......_Huh? Washing machines and clothes dryers...?_

* * *

_7:02 PM_

_The washing machine should be done with the clothes by now..._ The girl thought, looking up at the clock hanging above the television. Peaceful, tinkling sounds emitted from the 25" x 30" box. _Maybe I should go move them to the dryer now....._ She thought, shifting slightly towards the direction of the door. Before her resolve could be made up, however, she got distracted as the peaceful sounds emitting from the television suddenly switched into random-encounter battle music. _...Nah. I'll go later..._ she decided loftily, and turned her attention back to the screen to beat up whatever random enemy decided to challenge her super powerful game-shark-edited invincible warriors. 

* * *

_7:05 PM_

Naruto was just about to venture outside after a (very brief) contemplation of his current situation when two things happened. 

First, Sasuke and then Sakura came tumbling out of the clothes dryer Naruto just fell out of, and Kakashi came tumbling out right after, landing in a heap onto the previous two. 

Then, two women walked in, stared at Naruto, stared at Kakashi, Sasuke, and Sakura who were half sprawled across the floor and half still inside the clothes dryer where they tumbled out of, shrieked, and promptly ran out screaming for security about "laundry thieves" and "washing-machine vandalizers". 

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of masked Jounin's face. "I didn't understand what they were yelling about, but somehow, I don't think that was a good sign..." 

* * *

_7:15 PM_

"Eep!" was the only sound the girl squeaked out before hastily turning off the PS, television, and rushing out with her keys and laundry basket in tow. The door slammed noisily behind her and she nearly tripped in her haste, determined to complete the chore of doing the laundry in the meager fifteen minutes before her mother came back. 

* * *

_7:10 PM_

The members of the Konoha Ninja Squad 7 stood over the security guard's unconcious form, perplexed expressions on their faces. 

"Ne..." Naruto spoke up, his arms crossed in front of his chest as he squinted at the burly security guard that they knocked out. "So, like, what are we gonna do? 

Slipping a gloved hand behind his head to scratch his hair, Kakashi mentally assessed the situation quickly while performing this casual gesture. "It seems like the tunnel we fell through contained some kind of transporting jutsu. Technically, we could be anywhere right now. We could be somewhere near the village, but judging from the reactions those people had when they saw us, and from the strange clothes they were wearing, I wouldn't put too much hope on that..." 

Sasuke merely snorted and kept his opinions to himself. _Who wouldn't have reacted like that when we were all halfway inside clothes dryers looking like peverted underwear thieves caught in the act?_ he thought, sweat rolling down his forehead in exasperation despite his attempts to conceal his emotions. 

Her teacher said something about possibly being stranded in some strange country thousands of miles away from Konoha, but Sakura couldn't quite process that yet. 

Instead, she just stared in blank uncomprehension at her teacher for several moments. Therefore, the others were slightly surprised, to say the least, when she let out a sudden outburst. 

"WHAT?!" She practically screamed at Kakashi, shocked beyond manners. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST SAY?!!" _How on earth am I going to explain this to my parents?_ Her inner voice wondered. _'Sorry I'm so late mom, I had to follow Naruto through a hole that took me to another country and had to travel three months until I could get back?' No way. No _concievable _way._ "So what on EARTH are we going to DO??" 

Kakashi just shrugged lightly in face of her outraged response. "Maa...I suppose the first thing we have to do is to find out where we are..." he paused momentarily, absorbing the looks of _DUH!_ that his students were giving him. Clearing his throat awkwardly, he continued. "Mmm...well...I guess you three can wait here a moment while I go see what I can find out..." He finished, and disappeared with a poof of smoke. Five minutes later, he popped back in, his mop of gray hair even more disarrayed than usual, and a very disturbed look in his one visible eye. 

"What is it?" asked Naruto and Sakura simultaneously. 

Sasuke frowned. If it was something that managed to disturb the usually imperturbable Jounin, then it wasn't good. "Did you find out what place this is?" he asked. 

"Eh...well, no," Kakashi responded somewhat distractedly. "Remember that I said we should try to find out where we are first? Well, before that, as long as we're here, I think it'd be a good idea for us to change into some clothes that don't stick out so much like the ones we're wearing..." 

Jade-green eyes widened in disbelief. "You mean, steal the clothes here?" Sakura asked incredulously. 

"Well..." 

"That would be illegal!" 

"Well-" 

"And that would make us thieves!" 

"Well--" 

"We could get arrested for that!" 

"Are you quite finished...?" 

The pink-haired girl merely panted from her excursion and gave the gray-haired Jounin the evil eye. 

The object of her glare ahemed before continuing, "As I was saying....we need to fit in. And to do that we'll have to take the clothes here. Think of it as 'borrowing', if it makes you feel better, but you should know that as a Shinobi, one must always be prepared to take drastic measures in drastic situations...and the first thing I noticed outside was that the clothes people wear here are drastically different." 

Sakura let out a defeated sigh and plopped down on the floor. 

"What? So are we just gonna be changing HERE?" Naruto demanded loudly. His tone seemed one of greviance and complaint, but his glance kept darting furtively torwards Sakura, who upon his comment had turned the color of her cherry-red shirt. His efforts earned him a glare followed by a long vicious choke from his female teammate. 

Sasuke was about to point out a small curtained-off corner in the room that would have solved the dilemma, but decided to ignore the idiotic antics of his teammates and chose instead to direct a question at Kakashi. "Did you find out anything else while you were out there?" 

_Before I was stared down by six different people and got attacked by a mob of shrieking wild girls who came out of a buw labeled "For Japanese Tourists Only"...?_ wondered Kakashi. "--No, not much..." was what came out of his mouth instead. He caught Sasuke's scrutinizing gaze and held it, until the black-haired boy finally looked away in annoyance. He moved his gaze back to Naruto, whose face was now an interesting shade of blue, and Sakura, who was muttering huffily to herself, and sighed inwardly. "Well, if we have finished resolving our differences, then go look around and pick out an outfit you like..." he said in a lazy tone. 

With a sigh, his students scattered about, pulling out random pieces of clothing from the clothes dryers lined on both sides of the room. 

Kakashi watched his students for awhile, then pulled out a pinkish-orange covered book. However, he was barely able to get past two pages when he suddenly snapped to attention, sensing the presence of another person in dangerously close proximity. Sakura and Naruto looked at him strangely, but before he could do anything, Sasuke, who must have noticed the presence as well, flung a dagger at the shadow that was about to step into the room. 


	5. Chapter 4: Hold it Right There!

_Disclaimer: If I owned NARUTO (tm?), I would go throw myself off a cliff in ecstasy, which would mean I would be at the bottom of a cliff right now in about ten thousand peices. Or, in other words, dead. Or, in other words, not able to write this chapter. _   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_CHAPTER 3: HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!_

It was already night, but the sun still hung stubbornly in the western part of the sky, making it seem like late afternoon. The slowly fading sunlight shimmered on the ebony hair of a young girl hurrying towards the laundry center in an odd half-jog/half-shuffle, causing the keys hanging precariously from her pocket to jolt violently with each step that she took. 

Keeping a wary eye on the keys, the girl was prepared to react when a particularly violent jolt shook the keys out of their pitifully weak placement--or so she thought. Instead of managing to immediately free a hand to catch the falling keys, she yanked out her hand in a wrong direction and got her hand stuck in the laundry basket handle, which nearly upset her balance and lost her chance of catching the keys with ease, not to mention hurting like hell. 

After a few frantic grappling moments involving deployment of her fast reflexes and using some interesting impromptu juggling techniques, she managed to resecure her grip on the basket with her right wrist still trapped by the basket handle, which greatly limited the freedom of movement for that arm. Her left arm was wrapped tightly around the basket for extra support and she had miraculously managed to catch her keys between her elbow and her side. 

Rather than just letting the keys fall to the ground and then set down the basket to pick them up, however, the stubborn streak inside her refused to let the keys fall. She was too lazy to set the basket down, bend over, pick up the keys, and then having to pick up the basket again and move on, especially when she could have caught the keys perfectly in the first place. 

So in this awkward manner, she slowly, slowly inched torwards the laundry center, painfully careful lest any slight movement cause the keys to fall from her tenacious grip. Halfway to her destination, she dejectedly realized that it would probably have been much more time-and-energy-saving to just have let the keys drop and pick it up normally, as opposed to creeping forward in the silly way she was now, but she was too vexed to care and continued to plow on obstinately. 

So intent she was on preventing the keys from falling that she didn't even realize that she was holding her breath. Quietly and carefully, she moved forward inch by inch, until at last she reached the entrance to the laundry center. There, a low shelf extending from the doors offered a spot to rest her laundry basket so she could remove her keys from between her elbow and side and put them back into her pocket. 

With a smirk of triumphance that only one as stubborn as she could feel after completing such a totally useless stunt, she picked up the laundry basket, keys securely tucked away in her skirt pocket, and walked into the laundry center to face the strangest and most unforgettable sight of her life. 

The scene only lasted less than a second, but in her mind's eye it was frozen there for as long as she lived. 

Kakashi, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura were standing in the room, with Sakura and Sasuke in the process of pulling out clothes--that most obviously did not belong to them, making their actions illegal--from a random clothes dryer. Naruto was halfway through pulling on a black T-shirt that was...a bit too small for him. Sakura was staring in shock at this _very_ skimpy ladies' evening gown as if wondering whether the miniscule strip of see-through cloth actually counted as an item of clothing or not. Sasuke was staring at a brightly colored, rainbow patterned T-shirt that said "I hate myself and I want to die :)", his face torn between an expression of disgust, disbelief, and reluctant amusement. 

That was the scene she took in. Had it lasted a moment longer, she was sure that she would have burst out laughing at the insanity of it all. Or fell down on the floor choking in an attempt to laugh...had it lasted any longer. 

But that was before she saw the kunai headed straight at her.   
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

_A/N: If I continued to write the next scene, I know I'd get carried away and be unable to finish it in one day, and I felt that I had to update, so I cut this chapter short. Hope you still enjoyed it though. If anyone's reading, that is..._


	6. Chapter 5: A Switch of Vantage

_Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, I would be screaming my lungs out in exultation and thus die from a lack of oxygen, rendering the act of updating this crazy fanfic an unaccomplishable feat. _   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_CHAPTER 5: A SWITCH OF VANTAGE_

His teacher's hair was even messier than it normally was, something that he had thought impossible up until this point. There was also a distracted look in the Jounin's eye that immediately put Sasuke on a higher alert. Though Kakashi usually gave the impression of being a totally unreliable flake, Sasuke was one of the few who've witnessed Kakashi's skills first-hand and understood just how powerful the lazy-eyed Jounin really was. 

So if something had managed to disturb him, it wasn't good sign. 

"What is it?" Naruto and Sakura asked at the same time. 

Correction: if the likes of Sakura and Naruto also noticed that Kakashi was disturbed, then it REALLY wasn't a good sign. 

"Did you find out what place this is?" he asked his mentor. 

Kakashi replied no, and continued on to say that they should probably take the clothes here in order to blend in with the local civilians. That immediately roused up a bunch of complaints from his teammates, especially Sakura, who, always having been a stickler reluctant to break the rules, found it hard to disregard the illegality of Kakashi's suggestion. 

"--we need to fit in," said Kakashi in a tone that allowed no arguements. "And to do that, we'll have to take the clothes here. Think of it as 'borrowing', if it makes you feel better, but you should know that as a Shinobi, one must always be prepared to take drastic measures in drastic situations...and the first thing I noticed outside was that the clothes people wear here are drastically different." 

_As a Shinobi, one must be prepared to take drastic measures in drastic situations?_ Though it was a statement he could well agree with, the context Kakashi used it in as an attempt to justify the "borrowing" of the civilian clothes reduced the maxim's meaning down to nothingness. Though Kakashi was said to be talented in many fields of the Shinobi arts, apparently, the art of making up excuses was not one of them. 

As with many times in the past, Sasuke was torn between feeling respect for Kakashi's skills and exasperation at Kakashi's absurd mannerisms. 

To his left, Sakura sank to the floor with a defeated sigh, the look on her face suggesting that she was echoing Sasuke's thoughts. To his right, Naruto was whining in his loud, obnoxious voice. 

"What? So are we just gonna be changing HERE?" Naruto complained, but his eyes kept darting to Sakura. 

_Stupid move._ Sasuke thought. Sakura wasn't _that_ imperceptive, and would probably beat the crap out of Naruto for doing that. 

As he predicted, Sakura turned bright red at Naruto's lewd comment and bonked the vulgar blonde boy on the head, then proceeded to choke him mercilessly. 

Sasuke sighed. When he first tumbled into the room he had taken a quick look around, scanning for signs of danger--during that cursory examination he had taken notice of a small, curtained-off section in a corner. Apparently, he was the only one out of the three to have noticed it. He opened his mouth, about to point it out, but then decided that it just wasn't worth it. Naruto and Sakura always argued, and most likely as not they'd start another arguement as soon as he ended this one. 

Meanwhile, Kakashi just stood there, his calm composure regained and leaning casually against the clothes dryer they tumbled out of. That brought Sasuke's attention back to another point. 

_He was out there for an entire five minutes and that was all he discovered? That the people here dress differently? That can't be it._ "Did you find out anything else while you were out there?" he asked Kakashi, a frown on his face. 

"...No, not much..." the gray-haired man said after some hesitation. 

"Hn..." It was obvious to him that Kakashi wasn't telling all he knew, and he didn't like it that the Jounin was hiding information from them like they were incompetent ninjas. He narrowed his eyes at his teacher, trying to decipher some clue to what the gray-haired man could be hiding. However, Kakashi caught his gaze and stared back at him unblinkingly, until he was forced to give up and look away. 

_Hn._ He was grumpy to begin with when Naruto forced them all on this wild goose chase, and now Kakashi was hiding something from them and he didn't know what. It didn't help improve his mood. Not one bit. 

So it was that he didn't even notice the approaching presence until it was already at the door. He was tired. He was annoyed. He was grumpy. He didn't think. The last two encounters they'd had with the people who came in from that door were not friendly. The person at the door about the step in right now had been suspiciously quiet and stealthy in their approach. 

Thus, the second he registered the presence that stepped in the room, instinct took over and he flung a kunai right at the head of the shadowed figure. 

* * *

She had stepped into the room to witness a sight she was sure to remember for as long as she lived. 

Now, it seemed that wouldn't be very long. 

Not even having enough time to get over the shock of seeing Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke and Kakashi (_of all people!_) in the Community Laundry Center (_of all places!_) stealing laundry (_of all things!_), the sharp blade flying towards her was another added shock that, combined with the previous factors, utterly paralyzed her. She couldn't move, couldn't even think, couldn't do anything other than stare horrified at the kunai seeking her life. _This is it. It's over..._

* * *

Kakashi barely managed to sense the intruder before Sasuke did, and thus didn't have time to prevent the boy from attacking. However, he knew the second Sasuke threw the kunai that they had made a grave mistake. 

His suspicions were confirmed when they got a good look at the person who stepped in. 

It was a girl, no older than eighteen from her looks, carrying a large white wicker basket. It was pretty obvious that she wasn't a foe, or even a minor threat. He saw her eyes widen in shock and felt rather than saw Sasuke curse frantically at his mistake. But the boy, having realized his blunder, did not possess the means to correct it; he wasn't that quick or that agile, not yet. 

During the same moment when Sasuke had thrown the kunai, Kakashi had crouched down, tensed up against the wall behind him. Now, sure that it was an innocent civilian and not a potential enemy, he put all his speed behind him and sprung forward, hoping he could reach the poor girl in time.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

_A/N: WHOO! Finally! Another chapter. This one took me awhile. _

Wow, people read. Thanks for those who reviewed, I wasn't expecting that. I will continue to write as long as you read....   
And yeah, the shirt Sasuke was lookin' at does exist. You can find weird shirts like that worn by all different kinds of people in Japan.   
On a side note...I've been studying Japanese for about two years now, so I know "something" about the language. However, I'm no way an expert so if you find any errors, please email me about it so I can correct it...doumo arigatou gozaimashita (THANKS). 

Special thanks to **mara-chan** for reminding me of the proper Japanese spelling for neechan and niichan, and for pointing out the horribly stupid mistake I made of uploading the same chapter twice by accident. Arigataki shiawase de gozaimasu! I still_ can't believe I did that...._


	7. Chapter 6: Say What?

_Disclaimer: I don't know, I've said it plenty times by now, if you still don't get it then I don't know what to do! I don't own Naruto. But I can dream...and write this fanfic...which is not for commercial purposes and purely for personal entertainment, so please don't sue this already-impoverished student._

_CHAPTER 6: SAY WHAT?_

If she could move, she would have shuddered. 

Whenever someone asked her what she felt of death, she had always replied that of death itself she had no fear. It was the actual _dying_ part that worried her--she was extremely pain-sensitive and, if possible, would prefer to choose a perfectly painless method of dying. The least painful death she could think of was being put to eternal sleep by use of euthanasia, but even then there was the pain of the syringe needle involved. She _hated_ needles. 

However, right now, she wasn't thinking of needles, but of the fate in the shape of a very lethal-looking dagger headed towards her. It didn't seem like a particularly painless way to die. And as it was, she couldn't quite seem to move out of the way, nor would it seem like she would be fast enough to avoid it even if she was able to move. Which, invariably, led to one conclusion: she was going to die, and in a bloody painful manner to boot. 

As it was oft to do in times of crisis, her mind began to drift towards dilirium. _...If the world is square and the kunai has a of mass X grams and is moving at a speed of Y meters per second, and it hits my head with a force of Z newtons, then bananas will be orange and the farthest possible distance the blood that spurts out can reach is--_

_**WHAM!**_

She was cut off mid-thought as something slammed into her side while something else whizzed past her ear. The laundry basket was knocked out of her hands and she was caught up by her assailant into a somersault. Together they skidded across the room until finally coming to a halt against the wall. On the other side of the room, the kunai had embedded itself two inches deep into the opposite wall. 

Blinking, she looked up at her savior. 

Kakashi looked back at her, relief evident in his visible eye. "_Mani atta na..._" 

She blinked again. 

She stared at the kunai. Then at Kakashi. 

Then at the kunai again. 

Then at Sasuke, who had thrown the kunai. 

Then at Sakura. 

Then Naruto. 

Then at Sasuke again---she abruptly swung her head back to stare at Naruto. 

The blonde-haired boy had been putting on a black T-shirt two sizes too small for him and had gotten stuck. He had only managed to get his arms partially out of the shirt, and was flailing and flapping them frantically in a futile attempt to pull the rest of his limbs out. Only the very top of his head of spikey yellow hair was visible through the shirt's neck opening; the rest of his head was still lodged underneath the body of the shirt, muffling his voice into undistinguishable squawks. In obvious distress, Naruto began running around wildly like a headless chicken. Literally. 

It took a moment to process that. Even after she took it in it didn't really register, for she dully turned to stare at Sakura again. 

Naruto ripped through the shirt and panted for air. 

She turned to stare at Sasuke. 

Back to the kunai. 

Then back to Kakashi. 

Then she looked down at herself and realized she was practically sitting in the Jounin's lap. 

Dumbly, she looked back up at Kakashi. 

And blinked again. 

Four pairs of eyes blinked back at her. Or, rather, three-and-a-half pairs of eyes. Apparently, they were all waiting for her to say something. 

Say what? Well, there was quite a few things she could say. _"Thanks for saving me"_ for one. _"Is is just me, or are you Kakashi?"_ could be another. Or even, "_Um, hello? Sasuke? I know I have long black hair and all, but do I look like Itachi to you?_" _"OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD OMIGAWD OMIIIGAAAAAWD! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"_ was a very tempting one. _"What the hell are all of you doing here!"_ was yet another possibility. _"I'm shocked out of my wits and I want to know exactly HOW and WHY you all came to be here and are mucking around like perverts in my neighbors laundry"_ would have been quite adequate. 

"Errrr..." was all that she could get out of her mouth.

* * *

_A/N: I'm actually supposed to do my major history-literature paper that's due in two days. I ended up writing this instead T-T gah, somebody save me from my own procrastination! Argh.   
Please keep the reviews coming, they really give me a lift, and perhaps even -gasp- dare I say it? Motivation... --;;;_


	8. Chapter 7: The Crimminal is Revealed

_Disclaimer: ....I hereby solemnly and without a doubt pronounce you hopeless._

_A/N: I've went over all the previous chapters and edited some stuff, and corrected some minor mistakes I found. Nothing major that you need to re-read the entire thing for, but I've added a new part to chapter 6 that I forgot to put earlier, which is pretty strange since that new scene was one that I've been wanting to write for quite awhile, so if you could kindly please read chapter 6 again and tell me what you think of the new part, I'd be quite grateful. ^-^ _

Oh, and to my faithful readers whom I am eternally grateful for, I'm afraid that the next chapter will be postponed for some time due to an evil thing some teachers like to call "semester finals". I hope you will be patient... 

*Interesting note: this chapter was written backwards.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Back in Konoha, Elite Jounin Ebisu was busy lecturing his incurable charge Konohamaru. Well, perhaps "lectured" isn't the most suitable word. "Attempting and failing miserably to correct a youngster and being ridiculed instead" would be more fitting. Below follows an account of their conversation. 

"You WHAAAATT?!!!" 

The goggle-sporting boy sulked, pouting. 

"Are you telling me, that YOU are responsible for your sister's missing book?!!" 

The pout deepened into a scowl. "If you didn't know that already, then whad'you asking me for??" 

Ebisu frowned. Such insolence, in one so young! "Do you know how much trouble you've caused for your entire family by pulling that stupid prank? Now, speak! Where did you put the book?" 

"Back where I found it in the first place..." the youngster muttered. 

"And where is that, exactly?" the Jounin pressed. 

"In a cave where I fell off from the cliff last week when we were hiking, okay?!!" Konohamaru finally spilled. "I hated that book! Whenever they were reading it I could hear them through the walls and it drove me crazy!! Ick!" the boy shuddered. "Now tell me who told on me!!" he demanded. 

Ebisu chuckled superciliously. "You really believe that you could get away with a prank like that without the Hokage-sama's knowledge?" 

"What? So it was the old geezer that spilled on me?? I'm gonna make him regret it! I'm gonna go defeat him right now and become Hokage myself!!" Declared Konohamaru before he charged torwards the Hokage's room. 

However, he'd barely taken two steps before he tripped over his own scarf and fell flat on the floor. He picked himself up, muttering "Ow", but was prevented from taking another step by Ebisu, who now had a death grip on the end of his scarf which choked Konohamaru whenever he tried to go beyond the circle formed by the radius of the scarf. 

"Nuh-uh, not so fast! I didn't spend the entire morning chasing you down just to let you run off again!" pulling on the scarf, he reined in the boy like a fish and picked him up by the collar so that the child was now dangling helplessly before him. 

But perhaps not as helpless as he thought. 

Concentrating hard, Konohamaru put his chubby little hands together into a seal. "HENGE!!" he yelled, transforming into a young, dark-haired, and _very_ naked girl. 

Ebisu let go of the boy at once, sputtering in indignation. "KONOHAMARU!!! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT THAT VULGAR SKILL??!" he yelled at the boy, but not before Konohamaru saw the tell-tale drop of blood coming out of his irascible tutor's nose and the slight blush that stained the lanky man's cheeks. 

There was no way around it: the youngster must be corrected and set on the right path once more, and the only one who could do that was: the Special Jounin, Ebisu of Konoha! He puffed up his chest, about to give _the_ grand lecture of the year. 

The youngster recognized that look on his mentor's face. Desperate for excape, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Oh, look! Kurenai-sensei's coming this way!" he said, pointing a finger behind Ebisu. 

"W-what?" Ebisu quickly straightened out his shirt and hastily blotted at his bleeding nose with a hankerchief, lest his disheveled appearance be witnessed by another of his rank--and especially not by the attractive Kurenai-sensei! Hurriedly pushing his sunglasses up a notch with his middle finger, he turned around, taking his eyes off the boy for a few precious seconds. 

However, those few seconds was all that Konohamaru needed to scamper off. 

Fully expecting to be confronted with the newest female Jounin of Konoha, Ebisu turned around--only to be met with an empty hallway. He whirled around quickly only to find that his charge had also disappeared. 

There was no way around it; the Ebisu, the Elite Super Special Jounin charged with the special mission of training the grandson of the Hokage, had been duped. 

At this point, it should be noted that the man's face was livid with anger and was turning the color of a ripe tomato. One could practically see steam rising out of his ears and nostrils. The redness of his face intensified to the point where all the man's stress, frustration, and exasperation exploded in one single word: 

"KONOHAMARUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"   
  



	9. Chapter 8: Language Barrier

_CHAPTER EIGHT: LANGUAGE BARRIER_

She stared up dumbly at the gray-haired man. He looked back at her with equal curiosity. 

Slowly, she raised a tentative hand until it was right in front of the masked man's face. 

_What the hell is she trying to do???_ wondered Naruto. Next to him, Sasuke and Sakura looked equally puzzled. 

The girl stared blankly at Kakashi for a few more moments, her hand still hovering uncertainly in front of his face. 

Then, without warning, she pinched the Jounin's cheek. 

And pulled. 

And grabbed his other cloth-covered cheek with her other hand and began to stretch Kakashi's face in various directions, distorting it into several grotesque shapes. 

There was a loud _clunk_ as Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura's jaws hit the floor. 

* * *

Staring into his crystal ball, the normally unfazable leader of Konohagakure begun to get worried. The _suishyoudama_ showed him a view of whatever area he wished to see within a given radius depending on the viewer's chakra, which in his case, included practically the entire village. By focusing on a particular person or group of persons, he could also find out where they were. 

However, search as he might, he was unable to find Kakashi's team 7 anywhere. This meant that either they had traveled beyond the outskirts of the village, or had got seperated, or were dead. Since the mountains of Konoha were within his viewing range, logically speaking, he should have been able to locate them right away, but he was unable to do so. Individually looking for each member of Team 7 had also yielded no results. 

Bushy-gray eyebrows knitted together in concern. Granted, there were some areas in Konoha that were protected by high-level jutsus from scrying, but the search couldn't have taken Kakashi and his students near any of them. 

Then again, Team 7 was well known for getting into troublesome sitauations from the most simple-seeming tasks. The last time he'd asked them to do some simple escorting duty of an old man to the Country of Wave, they had gotten themselves tangled up in a battle against two extremely dangerous, Jounin-level missing-nins from Mist and one evil political boss Gatou, not to mention the insane amount of wicked minions Gatou controlled. Who knew what a missing-book search would lead them to? A mysterious portal to another world? 

He snorted at his own ludicrous ideas. _Hmph, I guess I really am getting old..._ he thought to himself. _Well...Kakashi is still young, I'll let him deal with whatever trouble his students stirred up this time,_ he decided. Though he couldn't shake of a nagging worry that something didn't feel quite right, he was the leader of Konoha and had the entire village to look after, not just Kakashi and his students. Sighing, he turned back to the _suishyoudama_ and began viewing another part of the village. 

* * *

After she had finally got her voice back and made sure that the four people she found inside the Community Laundry Center were actual flesh-and-blood human beings and not illusions (she had squished each of their faces like play-dough herself to make sure), she soon ran across another obstacle. 

"So, uh...." Kakashi said, rubbing his sore cheek. "Are you alright?" 

"Huh? I'm fine," she said automatically. She blinked in surprise as they looked at her with puzzled faces. 

"_Saki hodo warukatta na...!@#^$001mph(*&%...._" Kakashi tried again and went on to mumble something else she didn't quite understand. 

Then, it suddenly hit her and she understood what he was saying. He had said, "Sorry about that earlier, my subordinates can get a little hot-headed sometimes." The girl smacked herself on the head. _DUH!! They're speaking to me in Japanese, or whatever that language is called in their world, and I'm replying in English!! Hoo boy.....what a mess this is..._ she thought to herself. Opening her mouth to reply, she suddenly realized with a shock that she couldn't think up a single word to say. She'd been studying the language for some time now and was quite proficient in it, but somehow in this crucial instant she had managed to forget, or get shocked into forgetting, almost everything she'd learned so far. _Oh god. Of all the times this could happen...._

Racking up all the knowledge of Japanese she could remember, she tried to think of a suitable reply. "Uhhm..._su...sumimasen...._....eh, eehh..._ocha o irimasuka?_" 

* * *

"Uhhm...ex...excuse me........um, uumm...would you like some tea?" the girl asked. 

_WHAAAAAAA??!_ thought Naruto. If he was puzzled at the girl's odd actions before, now he was downright baffled, and if the looks on Sakura and Sasuke's faces were any clue, they were feeling the same as he was. _What the hell is wrong with this girl?? She just recovered from a near-death experience, she pinches us all on the cheek, we're trying to ask her if she's okay and she's asking us if we want tea??_ His face was screwed up in confusion as he turned to his sensei. "Anosa, anosa...Kakashi sensei!" Naruto interjected. 

Kakashi turned to look at him. "What is it?" 

Naruto squatted next to Kakashi and whispered into his teacher's ear. "We should try to get away while we can...there's somethin' _weird_ about that girl..." 

"Ahhhh! _Chigau chigau!!_" the girl exclaimed suddenly, burying her face in her hands. They turned to look at her, and watched as she took several deep breaths, then tilted her head to the side, apparently thinking. Finally, after a long period of silence, she struggled out a few more words. "Um...this place...talk...bad....my house, come, talk? Please?" 

Sasuke sweatdropped. "Is she trying to get us to go to her house?" 

Kakashi shrugged lightly. "It would appear so..." 

His students turned to look at him expectantly, waiting for him to give his decision. 

The Konoha Jounin eyed his students, then looked the girl, considering. They needed a place to stay for the night, and someone to ask information from also. Before, he hadn't really considered the possibility that the place they had been transported to was so far away that the people spoke a completely different language, but the girl's strange tongue forcibly reminded him of that possiblity. At any rate, it didn't seem like they would be able to find shelter and information together anytime soon. He scratched his head awkwardly. "Well...I guess there's no harm to it..." he said, looking at the girl. She understood, and picking up the basket she dropped earlier, she led them towards the exit. 

However, at the doorway she suddenly stopped, as if she suddenly remembered something. Turning to them, she tried to say something, then promptly gave up and with a few large sweeping gestures bade them wait. They watched as she walked back to the fallen security guard, a frown on her face. 

The girl bit her bottom lip in thought, trying to decide what to do with the big, burly, unconcious man lying on the floor. Dragging him out wasn't an option, people would see him and wonder. She considered waking him up and telling him a lie, but she doubted that would work either. Glancing around to see if there were anything that might be of use, she spotted a folded-up sign in a corner along with a mop. Smiling now, she grabbed the mop, which was still wet, and hurriedly mopped the floor around the KO'd security guard, making sure to be especially sloppy around the area of the security guard's feet. That done, she took the sign that was with the mop and placed it just besides the security guard. The sign, unfolded, read: "CAUTION! WET FLOOR". 

Sasuke observed this all with a snort. Though he couldn't read the words on the sign, there was a picture on it that was clue enough to what the sign was for. _So. When the guard wakes up and sees no one else around, he'll just take in the obvious, put two and two together, and blame himself for his own stupidity._ The boy had to admit, the girl was pretty ingenious. 

That done, the girl then walked to the wall where the kunai was still embedded in. Around the point of impact there were several cracks in the wall. Eyeing it warily, she grabbed hold of it with two hands and with some difficulty managed to tug it out. There was nothing that could be done about the cracks; she just hoped that people would make up their own reasons as to how that happened. She handed the kunai handle first back to Sasuke, who took it back without saying a word. Shrugging, she turned and with a wave of her hand motioned for them to follow.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

_A/N: BWA HAHAHAHA! T-T I don't care if no one is reading this, I've fallen off the cliff of insanity and there's no coming back now.   
*Suishyoudama: suishyou = crystal + -dama = ball, so, put together it equals _crystal ball_. (Hopefully.)   
*Saki hodo warukatta na- Sorry about earlier.   
*Ocha o irimasuka - Would you like some tea?   
*Chigau - wrong!_   
  



	10. Chapter 9: A Chat Over Tea

_A/N: Eh? Somebody thinks Sasuke is OOC? O_O Eeeep, and I always thought I was managing to make him IC enough, but oh well, I suppose people will always have different interpretations of characters and different views on what is IC and OOC.   
Sorry for the late update, but the next chapter will be up VERY SOON. By the way, **kunoichi** is the Japanese word for female ninja. I'll add that to the vital Naruto Japanese chapter later. _

**IMPORTANT:**Oh, for the previous chapter, I forgot to mention something. All the stuff about the viewing range and chakra requirements about the Hokage's crystal ball is pure speculation. I don't even know if it's a CRYSTAL ball, it could be plastic for all we know. I have no idea how one would use it or if one can really locate people with it. Heck, maybe it's even like a palantir in Lord of the Rings and you can use it like instant messenger, but Kishimoto-sama (the author of NARUTO) never explained it fully so I just theorized its uses. If you don't like my theory, tough. I'm not gonna change it to whatever your narrow mind thinks is a better one. *maniacal laughter*   
Oh yeah. I suppose I should mention that this insanity is set before the Chuunin Exams. Um. Yeah. Before the Hokage-- 

**SPOILER ALERT** 

  
WAAAAAAAAHH!!!! STUPID STUPID OROCHIMARU!! (still in denial)_ That's the SECOND nice character that's been killed off!!! _(still in mourning for Hayate)   
  
  
  


*END SPOILER ALERT*   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


"As for the small space, sorry," the girl spoke up from behind a copy of _The Handy Pocket-size Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary_. She squinted at the small print and continued. "It's just my mother and I living here only so..." 

They were all in her small living room, with Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura sitting on the couch and Kakashi leaning against a wall. Sakura was in the middle of the two boys, looking like she was torn between feeling happiness at the closeness of Sasuke or disappointment at the closeness of Naruto. The girl herself was perched daintily on the arm of a wooden chair, and had made tea for them all even though they never really answered her earlier inquirement about whether they would like some tea or not. 

"I would show you around, but the room of mine is kind of messy. Well, um, actually, most of the rooms are kind of messy," she admitted a little embarassedly. 

Her confession was met with a slight chuckle from Kakashi, apparently amused. She hoped it wasn't at her rather frail attempt at speaking their language. 

"It's quite alright really, we're grateful enough that you invited us to your lovely--er, your house," Sakura said politely. 

The girl nodded welcome to the younger pink-haired ninja, but couldn't help wonder what the kunoichi was _really_ thinking. After running a few possible answers through her head, she decided she would rather remain ignorant. 

"Well...um..." she started again hesitantly, thinking that her Japanese teacher would be outraged to know that she had forgotten nearly all the Japanese she'd learned in three years within the first two weeks of summer break. Well, perhaps it could be attributed to the shock she recieved when she encountered the Konoha ninjas in her local laundry center, but knowing her sensei, no matter what reason she supplied her sensei would throw so many words of lecture at her she would eventually collapse from the sheer weight of them. "I'm...sure that you all have many, uh" --she paused and rapidly flipped through her Japanese-English English-Japanese dictionary-- "I'm sure that you all have many questions and concerns, but I'm afraid that--" 

_Ring! Ring!! Brrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiinngggggggggg!!!!_

She was rudely cut off by the phone. "Excuse me a moment," she muttered before starting her mad scramble to find the phone. After a few moments Naruto, Sasuke and Naruto got up frorm the couch to aid her in her search. 

After some chaos and confusion, they finally located it in a pot in one of the kitchen cabinets. _Whatever in Hell's name made me leave it **there**??!!!_ She thought unbelievingly. _Oh. Wait. I must have been about to make soup when someone called and distracted me. At least I didn't put the pot on the stove and heat it..._ She snatched up the phone and answered it, avoiding the others' gazes. "Hello?" she answered breathlessly, switching abruptly into English. "Oh." 

It was her mother, calling to say that the boss had announced he was leaving as rumor reported, and all the employees had to stay for a late-night farewell party. From her experience, those kind of affairs were likely to last until one o'clock in the morning, with the result of everyone being drunk or near drunk, with the boss being most drunk, and everyone trying not to collapse or vomit on each other. 

She despised employers who were inconsiderate like that and never gave prewarnings for their ego-inflating banquets, but tonight it worked to her advantage. "Mother..." she fished around quickly for a plausible excuse. "I um, ran into some of my Japanese friends from the student exchange program two months ago, they're here this summer with their family on vacation. Is is alright if they stay for the night? ....Okay. Yeah, I'll clean up the house when they leave. Uh-huh. Okay. Bye." 

_Beep_. She turned off the cordless phone, setting it back into its cradle, and turned to eye her guests thoughtfully. Judging from their knowledge of what the ringing meant and their casual indifference towards her phone call, she concluded that they must have similar technology back in their own dimension. _Back in their own dimension_... 

She stared at them, uncertainty clouding her features. Unbeknownst to her other-worldly guests, beneath her seemingly innocently-worried face lay a turmoil of dark thoughts. 

_What brought them here?_ How _did they get here? And more importantly, _why_ were they here?_

With all that asked, it wasn't even the answers she feared. It was the consequences. 

Their presence here alone had realized the wildest of her dreams, and if her wildest dreams had come true, then the world was in a perilous state indeed. 

Especially if the one about Jiraiya dancing naked became involved. 

..._Particularly_ if the one about Jiraiya dancing naked became involved. 

Civilized planet or no, she didn't think her world would be able to handle that one. 

Shuddering, she quickly shook her head to clear away that unpleasant thought. _The consequences!_ She thought furiously. _I have to think about the consequences!!_

_...Instead of thinking about how cool Kakashi and how cute Sasuke and Naruto are looking, more so now that you're seeing them in person?_ a tiny of unable-to-be-ignored-voice in her mind asked. _Stop it,_ she told herself forcefully. She wasn't a pedophile, neither was she one of those people obsessed with having a relationship with someone old enough to be their parent, and she didn't plan on becoming either. 

It was to be admitted, however, that both options seemed extremely tempting right now. 

"Is anything wrong?" The speaker was, of course, Kakashi. The tall gray-haired Jounin was probably the only one in the room observant enough to have noticecd her unease and to actually say something about it, as opposed to Sasuke, who was the second likeliest to have noticed but probably wouldn't have said anything even if he did. 

She opened her mouth, about to give a lie, then abruptly shut it. She didn't want to to lie to these people before her, even under the most dire circumstances. 

She stared in silence at the floor tiles for a few moments before finally answering. 

The implications that a group of people had crossed over dimensions that should have remained seperate......it was a dangerous subject. She wasn't even sure if they even knew about theories concerning parallel planes and alternate universes, but if they didn't, they'd have to. 

Taking a deep breath, she finally spoke. "To continue what I tried to say earlier, I know that you must have a lot of questions for me, but I'm afraid that before that, there are some questions that I must ask you." 

* * *

_A/N: Note:: From now on this story will be taking on a slightly more serious edge, as I intended to in the first place, though for certain I will still lack the self-restraint to prevent myself from throwing in the occasional sarcasm and bits of humor into it. Hope you'll still enjoy it. Please give me a review? _


	11. Chapter 10: Who is This Girl, Anyway?

_A/N: I take back what I said before T-T I lost the manuscript for this chapter so I wasn't able to upload it until I found it, which took me just about forever since my room isn't....um.....well, let's just say it's not the most organized room the world has seen. To make up for it, I extended this chapter by quite a few paragraphs. In fact, I added two new sections. Hopefully, that'll keep the enraged readers off my back...........   
And um, I also got kinda sidetracked making a Naruto website. Anyone wanna see it, go to_   
~ h t t p : / / d e v o t e d . t o / h a y a t e ~   
(Blame it all on that!!)_ and sign my guestbook while you're at it! ^^;;;   
Argh! Finally! Ten chapters into this thing, I'll be damned if I can't sit still and write a serious chapter for once!_   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_CHAPTER 10: WHO IS THIS GIRL, ANYWAY?_

"...There are some questions that I must ask you." 

The strange girl who they had rescued earlier abruptly took on a serious edge, making her seem suddenly older. Again, he wondered how old she really was. At first he'd thought her a child--a _strange_ child--not much older than his students themselves, but now he wasn't so sure. 

The only thing he _was_ sure about was something his students would undoubtedly agree with as well; that this girl was _hella_ confusing. 

And it wasn't just because of the language barrier, either. 

Of all the his twenty-six years as a Shinobi of Konoha, Hatake Kakashi had never met anyone so completely and utterly confounding as the illogical creation of nature sitting before them right now. Even Naruto at his worst didn't give him such a headache. 

Still, years of experience and his keen insight had made him a good judge of character, and up until this point he had sensed nothing malicious or hostile about this girl. Since her actions were puzzling and paradoxical and her behavior was nothing short of erratic, giving him no clue to her ultimate goals or true intentions, he would just have to go with that gut instinct for now. 

He uncrossed his arms and sat down in the other vacant chair, sensing that the gravity of the moment required him to sit down and talk eye to eye, quite literally. 

It was to be expected that their host would start asking questions about them sooner or later, and frankly, he expected that it would have been much sooner. After all, she'd just taken home three strangers whose names she didn't even know. 

Even so, there was a guarded undertone to his voice, for all the casual air in his response. "Of course, we understand completely. We'll answer your questions as well as we can." 

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura understood with the look that he gave them that he meant _he_ would answer all the questions, while they kept silent and listened. 

The girl smiled faintly. "Thank you, Hatake Kakashi-sama," she said, effectively startling them all. 

_What the...?!!_ Sasuke glared at the girl, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles were turning white. All of the warning signals in his mind were going haywire, and it took all of his self-control to keep himself still and maintain an appearance of being undisturbed. 

Naruto had gone so far as to have already stood up with one hand in his shuriken holster and one foot stepped towards the strange, dark-haired, dark-eyed girl before he managed to stop himself, barely. 

Sakura's face was white, and from the side of his vision Sasuke saw Kakashi's visible eye narrow ever so slightly. 

"Who the hell are you?!!" Naruto demanded. "And how...h-how did you know Kakashi-sensei's name?" he asked through clenched teeth. "We never told you!" 

Slender white fingers cupped a ridged, bamboo patterned mug, gently tracing the grooved lines on it. Unconcernedly, the girl took a long sip of tea. "The same reason why I know your name, Uzumaki Naruto-san." She said softly, not even flinching at his menacing tone and posture. 

She looked up and met his gaze squarely, and the boy was surprised to see that her eyes were unnaturally bright and clear, not the same eyes of the lost, bewildered girl they had prevented from being impaled by Sasuke's kunai earlier. "And Sasuke-san, you can stop eyeing me like I'm dinner," she added. "It is to my knowledge that the Uchiha clan is not a clan of cannibals, and even if it were, I'm pretty sure that you wouldn't want to eat one of the insane." Arching an eyebrow delicately at their looks of surprise, she added, "Isn't that what you were all thinking? Don't say you weren't. You aren't wrong, you know," she remarked. "I _am_ completely crazy, because I just happen to make more sense than everyone else." She paused, seeing that they were now more confused than ever. 

"Didn't your teachers ever tell you that crazy people are just people who see the world in a clearer light?" she asked, and continued before they could answer. "Well. that is to be expected." 

Unsure of a word, she paused to look it up in the small dictionary she still held in her hands, and continued. "Happily, the degree of my mental instability isn't the main concern right now, though you may wish to worry about it later," she said dryly. Then she grew serious again. 

"The main concern for now...is you four." She waited for that to sink in. "That's right. You four are my main concern. I promise to explain it all later, but I need you to truthfully answer the questions I'm going to ask you, or else I cannot help you." Without giving them a chance to agree or dissent, she spoke again. 

"Are you three graduates of the Ninja Academy of the Hidden Village of Leaf?" she asked, targeting the question at Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke. 

As one, the three nodded, though somewhat hesitantly. It seemed a harmless enough question. 

The girl smiled again, more warmly this time. "Thank you. Have you three ever been to the Country of Wave?" 

Another nod. 

The girl paused a moment, then asked, "Have you also encountered a man called Momochi Zabuza when you went there?" 

That elicited a more noticeable response. She watched in silent amusement as her four guests attempted to conceal their shock with varying levels of success, from Naruto's jaw-gaping look of outright surprise to Sakura's frozen wide-eyed expression to Sasuke's tensed shoulders and white knuckles to Kakashi's perfect nonchalance of one who could well have been sleeping through her entire interrogation. 

_Heavens. Sasuke looks like he's about ready to butcher me for dinner _and_ stew the rest of my bones for breakfast,_ she thought wryly. 

"I'll take that as a 'yes'," she managed to say with a perfectly straight face. However, that face softened into one of sympathy when she asked her next question. "Did you also meet a boy called Haku?" 

The looks on their faces told her all she needed to know. 

She hadn't really wanted to bring that up, but she needed to make sure. She was silent for a few more moments, her eyes gazing steadily at Sakura. The younger girl's glossy light-pink hair flowed past her shoulders and down her back. That was a clue in and of itself, but again, she needed to make sure. 

"What is it?" Sakura asked, a little self-conscious. 

The girl merely shook her head. "You have very pretty hair" was all she said before she turned to face Kakashi. "I have just one more question," she said softly to the gray-haired man. "Have they taken the Chuunin exam yet?" 

* * *

"Yes, sir! There's been another case, Hokage-sama!" 

The man who was looked up to by hundreds as the leader of Konoha village looked up wearily. "Who is it this time?" he asked, already dreading the answer. He seemed to have aged twenty years over the past two nights. Ever since the disappearance of Kakashi and his students, ninjas from all over the village have been reported missing, most notably from the Hidden Leaf Anbu Squad who were always roaming about. 

"Reporting to Hokage-sama, it's a civilian this time, sir. Just one. Satou Kazami, forty-two years old, a farmer living near the foot of the Hokage Mountains. His wife reported that he went out for a smoke last night and never came back." 

"I see." was all the Hokage said. " You may leave now, Aoba." 

The bespectacled Jounin acknowledged the dismissal with a respectful bow before exiting in a puff of smoke. 

The Hokage sighed and exhaled his own puff of smoke, removing the long-stemmed pipe from his mouth and rubbing the barrel absentmindedly with his thumb. That would have been the fourth case since Kakashi. Things were not looking well. Not at all. 

* * *

"I see." The girl said seriously, brows slightly knotted and face slightly scrunched up as she digested this peice of information. Despite her grave expression, she suddenly resembled the likes of a very young child trying very seriously to understand adult matters that was totally beyond a child's area of comprehension, but attempting to nonetheless. 

"But now that you mention it, it should be about the time of the year..." Kakashi said thoughtfully. 

The girl nodded again, eyes wide, and Kakashi had to resist the urge to reach out and pat her on the head like his dogs. 

"Okay," she said. "Now you can ask me whatever you want." 

Naruto didn't need any more encouragement than that. "Alright! And it's about damn time, first off, how the hell do you know all our names?!!" He demanded. 

"N-naruto!" Sakura protested. "Don't be so rude!!" _But I want to know why she knows our names too..._

"And could you tell us the name of this place? We're kind of lost," Kakashi put in. 

_"Kind of" lost?_ thought Sakura, feeling her temper rise dangerously. _We're in some the-gods-know-what weird place with people so different from us that they scream when they see us and don't even speak our language, and we're "kind of" lost? URRAGHH! WHY did I get assigned to the same team as these kind of people?_ She thought, despairing. _Ah, oh well, at least I'm with Sasuke-kun...I'll just have to endure everything in the name of our beautiful love!_ she sighed and looked at Sasuke dreamily, her hands clasped to her heart. _Sasuke-kun, you are my strength, my hope, my salvation! As long as you're with me, I can withstand anything!_ she thought adoringly. The black-haired boy, however, didn't seem to notice her staring at him. 

The girl offered Naruto a fruit tart, which the boy accepted shamelessly, before answering. "Well, if you don't mind, I'll answer your sensei's question first, because it'll explain why I know a lot about you guys. To answer your question, Kakashi-sama...well, I don't think giving you the name of this place would mean anything to you, but I will tell you where you are. You are in another world." 

"Another WHAA---?!!" Naruto choked and spat, chewed-up fruit tart flying everywhere, and mostly in Kakashi's face. 

"Another world," the girl repeated, using a piece of tissue to wipe up the stray bits of half-chewed food on the table and floor, and handing another piece of tissue to a vexed-looking gray-haired Jounin. "You four are not of this world. I don't know how you got here, because you're not supposed to. You don't exist in this world. There are no ninjas here, people don't have chakra, people can't use ninjutsu, and the closest thing to genjutsu are computer-generated holograms." 

"But then how...you....no chakra? How is that possible?" 

The girl gave Sakura an understanding look. "It's an entirely different world, so even thought it may come as a shock to you, it is normal to us here. But although our worlds are seperate and different, for you to have been able to come to this one, there has to be a connection between this world and yours." She hesistated, before leaning over and reaching under the couch to retrieve a book. She handed the book to the pink-haired girl. "In this world, you guys are all comic-book characters." 

Sakura flipped through the pages hesitantly while Naruto clamored around her, trying to get a good look at the book. 

The girl subconciously held in her breath, nervously waiting for the pink-haired girl's reaction. 

Sakura's eyes roved aross the pages, green irises slowly growing bigger and bigger. Finally, she all but threw down the book on the glass coffee table and stared incredulously at her host. 

"They made me look fat," Sakura said flatly.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

_A/N: ....I am evil. _


	12. Chapter 11: Of Squabbles and Fruitarts

_**Reader's Responses!**   
Dear_ ICEMINT:_ Yes, this fic _will_ be going somewhere soon, it probably should have started going somewhere sooner, but as this is my first attempt at writing a drawn-out story I tend to get sidetracked and hindered by my own inexperience. Just rest assured that the story WILL be going somewhere (eventually), and hold your breath and cross your fingers and hope that it'll be soon... _

Dear LASAIRE:_ Thank you for your reviews, you always manage to keep this scatterbrained half-assed writer to redirect her attention on the more important aspects of the story, and to keep it real. Yes, I have thought of the Inner Sakura issue and it will be explained in this chapter. The language barrier was a big problem back when the protagonist of this story first met Team 7, because they had shocked her into forgetting all but the very basics of the language; the girl actually knows quite a bit of the language and is actually pretty proficient at it, and now that the shock has worn off, she is recovering and remembering most of her skills in that language, and just needs the dictionary as a reference for the occasional specialized term to carry on a decent conversation.   
Unfortunately, I failed to convey that clearly and I still have no idea how...I will try harder though! And thank you for pointing out the fact that having a metaphysical discussion is harder than just having a normal conversation in a foreign language, I will keep that in mind. _

**A/N:** OMG I updated! ;; Ahh, I forgot to mention that in the previous chapter, "Satou Kazami" _is not a character in Naruto, I made him up completely. _Aoba_, however, is a Jounin that does appear in the manga briefly (forgot if he did in the anime; need to go check.) Ah, and the Japanese terms chapter has finally been revised.   
And yes, I have changed my pen name because I used to be "Darkblade", which is all very nice and all until saw fit to let someone ELSE take the name "Darkblade" and added a "1" after my penname, making it "Darkblade1". I intensely dislike having a number added any of my pen, screen, or alias names. So I changed it to "Chuwei". Just to let you reader(s?) know..._

_CHAPTER 11: Of Squabbles and Fruit Tarts_

Naruto snatched up the book as soon as Sakura had let go of it and began looking through it eagerly. 

Where Sakura had been affronted, the loud, vibrant boy was positively elated. "Look at this! Look at this!" He exclaimed, pointing exaggeratedly to the front cover where a colored picture of him was biting a scroll in his mouth and carrying two huge paintbrushes on his back. "Riiiight here! Look at that! That's ME!" he said with a grin so big, it didn't seem like his face would be able to accomodate it. "Meheheheheheheeh..." _Hey, if the people here made a book with ME on the front cover, then they can't be all that bad..._ the blond boy thought, notions of fame triggering his "inflated-head" syndrome. 

Kakashi looked blandly at his student's impossibly wide smile, silently wondering if the boy's face was capable of sustaining such a strain. 

Making a derogatory noise to signal his affected distinterest, Sasuke crossed his arms in front of him, but it was obvious that he was itching to look at the book himself. In the end, curiousity won and he moved over to look at the book over Naruto's shoulder. 

Meanwhile, the girl was busy letting out a sigh of relief. So far, none of them freaked out too badly (yet). She had been half afraid that Sakura would discover that the manga had portrayed her "Inner Voice" quite clearly and that the kunoichi would go bonkers at seeing her true face being revealed. 

But the pink-haired girl didn't seem to have noticed it (yet), most likely because 1. That particular volume was in English, a language the young kunoichi didn't understand; 2. Sakura was still obsessing over the fact that Kishimoto Masashi had made her look fat; and 3. She didn't look any further once she had seen the first unflattering image of herself. 

It was no accident that the one the girl had handed them was in English, and that it just so happened to be the very first volume so the four ninjas wouldn't find out anything they didn't already know. 

Though generally viewed as a nutcase except for those who knew her well, she was by no means an idiot, and was a careful thinker despite her spontaneous and somewhat reckless nature. She would take the book back before any of them could get a detailed inspection of it, anyway, or before they discovered anything they shouldn't have or saw parts that would remind them of certain sticky situations that they would much rather forget, such as-- 

Naruto suddenly made a gagging noise and threw the book down. Sasuke, who had been peering over the Naruto's shoulder, blanched, and a strangled sound came from his throat. 

_--Too late,_ She thought with a sense of dread. 

Ignoring the protests from the boys, Kakashi picked up the book idly and looked at what had disturbed his two students. 

"Ahh..." the Jounin beamed, his visible eye arching up into a merry little curve. He turned the book around so everyone could see the perfectly captured picture of Naruto kissing Sasuke by accident. "You guys should be like this more often...it would definitely improve teamwork," he said, with a perfectly innocent look on his face, earning him two death glares from his spiky-haired pupils. 

Though Kakashi's deep and slightly mask-muffled voice was a bit hard to listen to at first, she could well understand the gist of it. She failed to keep a straight face and coughed quickly in an attempt to smother her laughter. However, her frail attempt at hiding her mirth only redirected Sasuke's and Naruto's glares to herself. _Eeh..._

"Um..." she coughed again and awkwardly tried to change the topic. "Welluhm, I'm...glad...that you were able to take the news so easily, but ah...I for one am very curious as to how you all came to be here. I mean...how would you be able to get back?" 

Naruto eyed her crossly and stuffed another fruit tart into his mouth, causing Kakashi to immediately back up a few steps away from the boy. 

Pointedly ignoring his mentor, Naruto chewed, swallowed, and smacked his lips before answering. "We fell through a hole and just ended up here in this weird place. Actually, I came first, but since Sakura-chan was so horrified when I disappeared she came chasing after me, isn't that right? Right? Sakura-chaaan?" 

Sakura's face instantly turned beet-red. "WHAT! NARUTO YOU IDIOT! YOU were the one who was STUPID enough to fall into the hole in the first place! If it weren't for Kakashi-sensei I would have just left you there! You always--" 

"No matter how stupid he is, we can't leave a teammate behind." Sasuke cut her off abruptly. "We're a three-man team, even though he got us into this mess because of his stupidity." 

Sakura immediately subsided. "Ah..ha...o-of course, Sasuke-kun..." she said, immediately changing sides. She tried not to show it, but his brusque remark had hurt. _Sasuke...If I was the one who fell into the warphole instead of Naruto, would you have come after me? Would you have said that about me too?_

But of course, Sasuke's comment got Naruto all worked up again and another squabble between the boys broke out, leaving the issue of how they could get back forgotten. 

"Nevermind," Kakashi said, eyeing the door with great interest. Out of the corner of his eye, he had seen Naruto stuff another two three tarts into his mouth, and the Jounin was _not_ feeling very secure in the small room that left him in perfect spitting range of his most unpredictable student. "We'll show you." 

He gestured towards the door, obviously wanting to escape outside. 

The girl nodded. "Wait a moment please." She went to her room to grab a jacket when she abruptly realized something. _Oh, shit. I forgot to do my laundry._

* * *

_A/N: A short chapter is better than no update, I say. But the next chapter _will_ be longer. Now, to tend to my other Naruto fanfic..._


	13. Chapter 12: How to Get Home

_**Reader's Responses!**   
Dear _MachiGai:_ I don't drink beer and I intensely dislike alcohol, so I wouldn't know about a Yebisu as in beer XD Sorry ;; Secondly, _sakihodo_ is spelled _sakihodo_, even though "sakki" means "some time ago". Though, if you read manga in Japanese, sometimes proper spelling is altered a little to fit the character's personal style of speaking.   
Also, it is "_Henge_" not "_Hengen_". Even if you just listen to the voice actors they say "_henge_" quite clearly - This is because though "_Hengen_" means "transform", if you read the kanji it is really the one for "_Henka_" (which means "to change") except you'd say "_henge_" when ninjas transform. I suppose it's just a Japanese thing. At any rate, I think ANBU does a wonderful job fansubbing. Fansubs are so much better than the awful American Shounin Jump ones shudder  
Thirdly, you're correct in surmising that Naruto-tachi _can't_ read English. They don't understand it. They read the book the same way you and I would read a comic book that's in a foreign language; by looking at the pictures. Finally, it's been a long time since I've watched/read the part with Ebisu/Konohamaru, so I forgot that Ebisu calls Konohamaru "Omagosama". Thank you kindly for pointing that out! And thank you for your helpful review. ._

_CHAPTER 12: How to Get Home_

The group of five stared at the large, gray, rectangular metal box. A small sticker at the top right-hand corner proudly proclaimed it to be "HEAVY-DUTY INDUSTSTY-SIZE TYPE F100726" and offering "LIFETIME WARRANTY!" Below that, a slot for quarters, and a few knobs and dials for temperature and time adjustments. 

Other than that, there was nothing particularly noteworthy about the clothes dryer. 

The girl blinked and bent foward, looking at it curiously. "This is the one?" she asked. Turning around, she took in their blank expressions and winced. _Oops. I did it again..._ "I mean, _kono kikai desu ka?_" 

Kakashi nodded. 

_Hmm. So, it wasn't the machine after all...but the dryer_, she observed, thinking back to the conversation between her middle-aged neighbors that she'd overheard. _...How ironic._ Out loud, she asked, "So...do you think you can go back the way you came, Kakashi-sama?" 

The Jounin just shrugged. "I suppose we could try," he said off-handedly. 

His three students turned to gape at him. 

"Try!" Naruto shouted. "US!" 

"Sensei, these commercial dryers can get up to really high temperatures!" Sakura added. 

"This isn't a joke..." Sasuke put in coldly. 

"Yeah, that's RIGHT!" Naruto exclaimed. "If you want to test it out then you'd better find someone to do it, because I sure as hell ain't gonna--- 

The blonde boy trailed off abruptly as he suddenly noticed that everyone was now staring at him with predatory gleams in their eyes. Cold sweat began form on his back and trickle down in little rivulets. He shivered. 

Sakura laughed. It wasn't a pleasant laugh, but cold and brittle like ice. "Heheheheheheh." 

Sasuke, his eyes harsh as always, took a menacing step torwards Naruto. 

"W-wait," Naruto stammered out nervously. "What are you guys trying to--" 

In an eyeblink, Sakura and Sasuke had each grabbed an arm and was now mercilessly dragging Naruto towards the dryer with the intention of stuffing him into it, while Kakashi watched on indifferently. 

"Come to think of it, what was the start of all this?" Sakura asked in a deceptively pleasant voice. 

"If it wasn't for you in the first place, we wouldn't be here," answered a pissed-off Sasuke. 

The girl looked on blankly for a few moments, until she realized she had to do something to help Naruto and snapped out of her trance. "Wait!" she blurted out. "There's another way. I, uhm, conveniently forgot to finish up my laundry, we can just try it out with my wet clothes and see what happens!" 

"'Convenient', indeed," Kakashi muttered inaudibly to himself, feeling a bead of sweat slip down his forehead. 

Sasuke looked at the girl suspiciously. "What if it doesn't work?" 

"I'm actually pretty sure it will work," she answered. "There's been talk of things disappearing here, and I bet all those things that are missing appeared in your world. Tell me, the place where you fell into and ended up here, didn't you find anything strange or other-worldly there?" 

"Come to think of it..." mused Sakura, remembering the strange pouch, the pen, the gauzy fabric... 

"And come on," the girl cajoled, "You don't _really_ want to put your teammate in danger, do you?" 

The pink-haired kunoichi just 'hn'ed in response, folding her arms over her chest and turning her back on her blonde teammate. But her disappointment was actually due to something else. Secretly, her Inner Self had already been plotting the various ways to get Sasuke to go on a date with her once she got rid of Naruto. "Whatever," the miffed kunoichi muttered. "Let's just try it already."

* * *

"Well, here goes..." The girl said. All her clothes had been dumped into the dryer, and they now waited in anticipation as she hovered her finger above the "start" button. After a moment's more of hesitation, she pressed it. 

...Nothing happened. 

Frowning, she pressed the button again, harder. 

Immediately, the machine began churning and emanating heat as the clothes whirled in circles inside, around and around. 

And around. 

And around. 

And around. 

And around as the clothes still remained intact. 

"Nothing's happening," Naruto whined. 

The girl frowned. "Wait, wait. Let's just all stay calm and think about this logically," she said, stopping the electric dryer temporarily. 

Everyone else stared at her incredulously. The illogical being who kept phones in cooking pots was speaking of logic. However, they wisely refrained from commenting and they all sat down to think. 

Meanwhile, she examined the dryer. All her clothes were loaded in. The door was closed properly. She'd put in four quarters to start off the machine. The heat setting was on high. The timer was on automatic. 

_--wait._

She went back to the heat setting. Something about that struck her, and she tried to figure out why. 

_...gold fountain pen my husband left in his shirt pocket... _

...fine gauze curtains... 

_AH-HAH_. 

It clicked. 

_All the things that disappeared; gauze curtains, gold fountain pen...a fountain pen would be used by someone wearing nicely pressed silk shirts, a child's toy pikachu pouch and book would have most likely been left in a backpack, and with the horrible quality of bags and pouches these days...all those materials were delicate, and wouldn't be dried on a high heat setting meant for durable cotton clothes!_ Quickly, she turned the heat adjuster down to the lowest setting and restarted the dryer. 

The machine whirred normally for a few moments, then it emitted a soft _click_ and _pronto_, all her clothes disappeared in a flash. 

Everyone jumped up at once, excited. 

"It worked! It worked!" Naruto cheered estatically. "I can go back and eat all the Ichiraku Ramen I want!" 

"Thank you very much," Kakashi told the girl emphatically. "We can return now." 

Naruto, much more confident now that the heat was on the lowest setting, was the first to go. He was then followed by Sakura, then Sasuke, and finally only Kakashi was left. 

The gray-haired Jounin opened his mouth to speak, but before he say a single word, the girl cut him off. 

"You're not going to say 'goodbye', are you?" the girl asked quickly, "you better not, because I'm going to go with you." 

"Wha-!" was the only thing Kakashi could get out. 

"Of course!" the girl exclaimed. "Do you have any idea how consequential a breach between two different dimensions can be? I need to go to your world to investigate. You don't know who else might have fallen in here besides you and your students. Besides, all my clothes are still there!" 

"You don't do your laundry until you run out of clothes?" Kakashi asked blankly. 

"That's not the point."

* * *

In the end, the Jounin was unable to argue against the girl and ended up bringing "extra baggage" along with him back to Konoha to be greeted emphatically by his students. 

"WHAT THE HELL IS _SHE_ DOING HERE!" Sakura and Naruto exclaimed in perfect synchronization, staring up at their mentor in disbelief. 

"Hi. Did you miss me?" The girl asked with an evil smile.

* * *

_A/N: _Kono kikai desu ka_ - This machine? In the context above, it means "is it this machine (that you came out of)?" _

Been writing smooth lately. Intervals between chapters likely to shorten for the next period. Feed me reviews please. 


	14. Chapter 13: Great Expectations

_**A/N:** Arrgh...I wanted this to be a (somewhat) serious fanfic! I suppose that to make that happen I need to get a more serious attitude myself kicks self   
Anyway, this chapter is dedicated to _Icemint_! You were there since the very first day I put up this fanfic not knowing what people would think of it. Thanks man! You were my motivation to write when I felt unsinpired -_

_CHAPTER 13: Great Expectations_

Floundering, misdirected anger. 

_WHAT IS THIS!_ She fumed silently. This is another world! This is a totally different dimension! This is an adventure! This is the challenge of the unknown! This is a step into the great beyond! This is-- 

_...BORING_. 

_"Well, well, now that we're __all_ back, I'll leave you guys to celebrate your happy little reunion then," Kakashi said in a falsely sweet voice. "_I need to go pay the Hokage-sama a visit."_ With that, the Jounin instructor had simply disappeared with a puff of smoke, leaving Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto to deal with the extraneous item he brought back. 

Then, almost immediately after Kakashi jumped ship, Sasuke had ditched the group, with Sakura chasing after him. 

Leaving her with only Naruto. 

And a pile of once-again dirty clothes that had been instantly transported onto the _wonderfully_ dirty floor of a cave that hadn't been inhabited, much less cleaned, for what-deity-knows-how-long. 

At least they were dry, but that didn't do anything to improve her mood. 

The cave had been too stuffy, so she and Naruto had hauled her clothes outside and were now dividing it into two bundles to carry down together. He had nicely asked her to go to his apartment and stay a bit, after she had painstakingly described (in meticulous detail) the various torturous things she would do to him, should he take off and desert her as well. 

Since he'd already tasted her cooking previously, she had a nagging suspicion that Naruto had probably intended her to stay with him anyway. He even offered to help her carry her things down, but she told him to go entertain himself while she seperated her clothes into two piles. 

No way she was going to let Naruto touch her underwear. 

Kicking a loose, medium-sized rock down the hill, she took perverse pleasure in hearing it crash down the steep slope. She hoped it would hit someone on the head. 

_Stupid Kakashi. Ditcher. Mono-eyed perverted straw-headed hay-brained deserter. And stupid Sasuke. Mr. I-had-a-bad-childhood-so-I-get-to-be-a-rude-stubborn-prick-to-everyone. Mr. I-am-too-cool-to-talk-so-I-will-just-grunt-or-snort-on-occasion._

She finished seperating the piles and began bundling them up, shifting her target of anger to Sakura. 

_Miss Closet-schitzo-fanatical-Sasuke-groupie. _

Miss My-hair-will-glow-in-the-dark. 

She paused, considering. That one wasn't entirely fair, she decided grudgingly. She'd let her predjudice of pink get in the way. 

Alright, then. _Miss I-am-hopelessly-and-stupidly-in-love-with-Mr-I-will-snort-and-grunt-on-occasion_. 

Done with bundling, she called the blonde boy back and together, they started down the mountain.

* * *

"...and that pretty much concludes it," Kakashi finished. 

The Hokage nodded. "The girl. She came here with you as well, you said?" 

"Yes, that's right." affirmed Kakashi. 

"Very well. Bring her here and have her stay at the special guest lodgings. I am calling together a meeting tomorrow morning and I would like her to attend...there are many questions that need answers, and many things that must be discussed." 

"Alright. Do you mean the rooms reserved for special emissaries and messengers from the other Ninja countries, sir?" 

The Hokage took a deep puff from his pipe and exhaled, slowly. Billowing whips of smoke swirled around in the air, temporarily hiding his face from the Jounin. "No. The _other_ rooms." 

Kakashi raised an eyebrow slightly, but showed no other indication of surprise. "You want her to be kept under supervision?" 

"Yes, Kakashi. See that it is done." 

Kakashi nodded. "I understand." With a quick bow, he quickly left the room, keeping his doubts to himself.

* * *

Wide-eyed, the girl stared at the "room" she was to be staying in. It had a living room, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen. The rooms were all moderately-sized, but very sophisticately decorated; ink and watercolor paintings graced the walls, and a giant fan with elegant calligraphy surrounding the Konoha village's Leaf symbol hung on the wall directly opposite her. An exquisite bamboo curtain seperated the living room from the kitchen, and a queen-sized bed heaped with an insane amount of pillows, blankets, cushions, and quilts awaited her in the bedroom. Not a speck of dust was to be seen anywhere. 

Desipte the fact that overall, the room was not that big, she couldn't imagine herself occupying all this space. 

Kakashi grinned at her expression. "Well? Is it to your liking?" 

The girl had to gulp before she got her voice back. "You know...I _can_ just stay with Naruto...I like him well enough and I actually like cooking for someone else...this...really isn't neccessary..." She and Naruto had barely gotten back to the boy's apartment and started a game of cards, when Kakashi suddenly reappeared out of nowhere and told her to come with him. 

The Jounin waved off her protests. "This is your room. You'll be staying here for the time being as a special guest of Konoha. Just remember that the Hokage wants you at the meeting tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM." with that, he left and shut the door behind him. 

She just nodded dumbly to no one in particular, and stood there rooted in spot for a few more moments before she decided to explore the room a bit more. 

First, she walked into the kitchen. On opening the various drawers and cabinets, she discovered that it was stocked full of every kind of cultery item, equipment, food and other ingredients imaginable for nearly any kind of cuisine. The pantry and the refrigerator was just as fully loaded, with six different kinds of ice cream in the freezer. 

Stunned, she walked to the bedroom and sat down on the bed. An investigation of the closet revealed some robes and sleepwear and even some clothing that she guessed was the current fashion of girls her age in the village; while there weren't a lot of these, they all happened to be close or near to her size so she deemed that it couldn't be coincidence. What was more, all the clothes that she had hauled to Naruto's place had been transported here, freshly laundered and folded into neat little piles into the drawers of the closet. 

_What a day,_ She thought. Everywhere she looked, she found another surprise. A vase of flowers on the table. A stationary set within the desk drawers. A _yukata_ hanging inside the bathroom. But she didn't see the insidious shadows lurking outside the windows. She didn't hear the soft footsteps padding back and forth outside the door, or notice the faint traces of chakra that held together the containment jutsu around the room.

* * *

_A/N: I've nothing against any of the Naruto characters (with the exception of Orochimaru, Baki, and Kabuto) and I like them all quite much. In fact, the more I like them, the more I like to make fun of them. XDDDD Yes I'm weird like that.   
_Yukata_: Looks like a kimono, really kind of a casual kimono. It's a Japanese summer robe commonly worn after baths._


	15. Chapter 14: Conspiracies in the Night

_**A/N:** Dear _ and Dragon:_ OMG! You guys never reviewed for the previous chapters, so I didn't know I had you two readers Oo First of all, thank you for supporting this fic! I really appreciate your reviewing! And I will do my best to write to your satisfaction for all the upcoming chapters! salutes _

_CHAPTER 14: Conspiracies in the Night_

Thump. 

_Thump_. 

..._CRASH_. 

Sakura woke up with a jolt and opened her mouth to scream, only to to have a hand clamp tightly over her mouth a split second later, cutting her off. Scared out of her wits, she stared horrifyingly at her attacker and saw a pair of sinister black orbs staring back at her in the darkness... 

_...Wait a minute._

That pair of black eyes looked oddly familiar. 

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could faintly make out the spikey black hair of a familiar figure. "Sa...Sasuke...?" She asked hesistantly. 

Her heart was still beating fast, but for an entirely different reason now. She hadn't noticed how close he was to her, with those intense dark eyes boring straight into her soul, and his lips a mere few inches away from hers... 

Sasuke put a finger to his lips to demand silence, then beckoned her to follow. 

Pulse racing, she excitedly followed the black haired boy out the window, pausing to wince at the huge crack in one of the panes, with a pebble still lodged in it. The wince deepened into a scowl as she climbed down the window and realized that Naruto was there waiting for her as well. 

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto greeted her loudly with his typical grin. 

"Shhh!" The pink-haired girl hissed back. "Not so loud! My parents will kill me if they find me up this late!" _Though I wouldn't mind being grounded if it means I get to spend the night with Sasuke..._

"Enough of this." Sasuke cut in. "Let's get going. We still need to get one more person."

* * *

Thump. 

_Thump. _

...Thump. 

"Aaaaghh what is it _this_ time?" The boy on the bed grumbled. He'd been unsuccessfully trying to fall back to sleep ever since he'd woke up from a rather disturbing dream of having lost to Asuma at go within three moves, which was utterly unthinkable, not to mention physically impossible. 

He shuddered, remembering how each time, his sensei's peices had increased more and more, until they were flooding the go board, cornering all of his movements, even though his mentor had only put down one chess peice at a time. He shook his head, trying to clear away the unsavory memory. 

Focusing on the current situation at hand, he briefly entertained the idea of going to the window and yelling the crap out of whatever idiot was throwing stones at his window. 

The idea was quickly dismissed as too troublesome as it required getting out of his comfortable position on the bed and having to walk all the way to the window. _It's a good 5 feet away, for Chrissake. Go away and leave me the hell alone._ Rolling over, he squinched his eyes shut, too lazy to even cover his ears with his hands to try and drown out the noise. 

After awhile, the noise stopped. A short period of silence followed. 

Just as he started to relax and doze off, he heard several ill-concealed whispers coming from below, followed by some scrabbling noises made by someone obviously trying to climb up to his window. 

He groaned inwardly and scooted a little bit closer to the edge of the bed, hoping whoever the hell appeared might mistake him for a lump on the mattress and leave him in peace. Considering the invader of his room, his plan just might have actually worked, if he hadn't scooted a little _too_ near the edge and ended up falling off the bed with a loud _THUMP_. 

"Ow." He muttered dejectedly, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head. He felt a small lump starting to rise and muttered a couple of incoherent curses. 

"Shikamaru!" Naruto whipped around torwards the direction of the sound. "Get yer lazy ass over here!" 

"It doesn't look like I have a choice now, does it?" Shikamaru retorted. 

"Just get over here already!" Naruto exclaimed impatiently. "Sasuke's got some kinda important thing or whatever that he wants to show us." 

Grumbling tiredly and complaining all the way, Shikamaru reluctantly followed the hyperactive boy out the window.

* * *

A pair of yellow eyes roamed over the outlines of the village, hungry, thirsting, insatiable. 

"Soon," a deep, gravelly voice rasped out. Those in its prescence shivered at the frigidity of its tone. There was no forgiveness in this relentless voice, no hint of mercy. To get what it wanted, it would destroy anything and everything in its way. 

"Soon, this village, and all of the foolish inhabitants in it, will be mine." 

"I, _Orochimaru_, have returned."

* * *

Members of the Anbu squad stared blankly. 

On the bed, sheets and pillows were impossibly tangled with human limbs into one insane knot of chaos. A leg was on the bed, while the other encircled one of the bedposts. Torso was half draped across the bed and the rest on the floor, while one arm rested at an odd angle on a nearby bedstand. The other arm encircled one of the four-poster bed's wooden legs. The head was completely hidden--it was _under_ the bed. 

Oblivious to her surroundings and to her watchers, the girl from the other world slept on soundly.

* * *

_A/N: HAHAHA. You thought I was going to end this chapter on a serious note, huh? HUH? NO! AHAHAHGARHAHGAHARHAW--chokes and dies _


	16. Chapter 15: Morning Routine

**_A/N:_** Uah. Character development time. Daarrrhgh. 

Thanks for all the support! I truly couldn't have made it this far without you guys. I know it's been a long time, so this time, I put up 2 chappies at once! X3!! 

P.S. Long reviews=happy author+ possibly longer chapters >_>   
  
  
  
  
  


_CHAPTER 15: Morning Routine_

_Someone_ had the collossal gall to wake her up at the unholy hour of, she forced open one eye and glared at the alarm clock, yes, heavens forbid, at the unholy hour of nine-thirty in the morning. 

She groaned and rolled over, pulling the blankets over her head and pointedly ignoring the persistent knocking on the door, hoping whoever the hell it was would go away soon. 

No such luck. The idiot, whoever the hell it was, kept knocking. 

"GO AWAY!!" She yelled, her voice slightly muffled by the blankets. 

The knocking stopped. 

"Thank you," she groaned into her pillow, twisting in place until she managed to find a comfortable position. 

Just as she finally got settled, however, the knocking started anew. 

"AAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!" 

She was up now, and quite enraged. Rolling off the bed, she stormed over to the door in her bedclothes, dragging half the sheets and blankets with her and not caring if she looked like hell. _Someone_ just didn't get the hint. _Someone_ had disturbed her peaceful Sunday morning sleep-in. _Someone_ was going to pay. 

She yanked the door open, fully prepared to deliver the wrath of all Hells to the person standing behind it-- 

--and gulped. 

_Someone_ was tall. _Someone_ was dark. _Someone_ was incredibly handsome in a pale, sickly way. 

That _someone_ --She took another good look just to be sure-- happened to be none other than Gekkou Hayate, who looked as dead as she probably looked like. Evidently, the Chuunin Exam Preliminary Tournament Judge wasn't exactly a morning person, either. 

Suddenly realizing that she was still standing before a perfect stranger (to him, anyway) in her bedclothes and staring quite rudely at him, she promptly slammed the door closed (right in his face too), thinking to change into something more presentable and run a comb through her hair a few times at least. 

Just as suddenly, she realized that, quite frankly, that she didn't _care_. 

Simply put, her brain, her vanity, and her sense of etiquette just didn't kick in until she was fully awake, which didn't happen until _after_ 12:30 PM, when everyone else was eating lunch and she would conveniently be eating her breakfast. 

Sighing in defeat, she opened the door again, averting her eyes and muttering something incomprehensible--the closest she could come to apologizing at nine-thirty in the morning. 

Apparently, the Chuunin examiner seemed to understand that it was meant to be her version of an apology and nodded as a sign of acceptance. 

Kicking aside the blankets as so they wouldn't be blocking the doorway, she stifled a yawn and tried to muster up an alert and respectful face due to a Jounin of his rank. She failed. 

The Special Jounin coughed lightly a few times, catching her attention. "The meeting will start in thirty minutes, so the Hokage-sama sent me to notify you," he said in a soft, slightly raspy voice, tactfully choosing not to comment on her ragged appearance or the messy state of the room. 

"Yes, sir" she mumbled. Peering at him through her own sleep-lidded eyes, she ventured, "You look like you haven't had your coffee yet." 

Hayate coughed again and shook his head. 

"Sit down," she muttered. "If I have to go to this meeting at the ungodly hour of ten in the morning, then I'm damn well going to take the half-hour I've got to wake myself up properly, Hokage or no." 

She wasn't sure, but she could swear that she saw the Jounin smile slightly at that. Hmph. _Well_. At the time right now, she just didn't care. At this time of the day, smiling was just another thing that she-who-would-turn-into-a-zombie-if-woken-too-early couldn't do. 

Grabbing the coffee maker, she dumped in two cups of water, small spoonful of citrus-ginseng tea mixture, and five heaping tablespoons of ground coffee beans into the machine--she had a sneaking suspicion that the examiner drank his coffee as black as possible. From the looks of him, it'd probably take a really strong coffee just to keep him awake, anyway. 

While the coffee was brewing, she slammed herself into the bathroom and filled the sink with water. As soon as the sink basin was nearly three-quarters full, she promptly plunked her entire head down into the water. 

She resurfaced a moment later, gasping at the icy coldness. Over the years, she'd discovered that dunking her head in cold water was the fastest way to wake herself up. Crude, yes, but effective. 

After some blindly groping about, she found her towel and sloppily mopped up her wet face and dried her dripping hair. She glared at her own reflection, which, from her point of view, was really just a blur of black hair and pale skin; she hadn't had time to put in her contacts yet, so she did that next. 

Blinking now with renewed vision, she threw on the outfit she'd laid out last night and slugged her way back into the kitchen to start making breakfast. Bacon, cheese and mushroom omlette, miso soup with rice, and some freshly sliced tangerines would finish it all up quite nicely. She made sure to make double portions for each item, arranging each neatly on clean white plates. 

By the time she was done, the coffee had also finished brewing. She poured the steaming dark-brown liquid into two mugs, shoved everything on a tray, walked back outside and plunked it all down before the dozing Jounin. 

Hayate blinked in surprise. "You shouldn't have gone through all this trouble..." he started, but she cut him off. 

"I can't go without breakfast, and since you obviously can't go off until I'm done, you might as well eat some with me," she said in a no-nonsense manner. "Heaven knows how much energy waking up at this hour takes. If I don't eat something now, I'll just end up sleeping through the entire meeting." 

"I can't possibly eat all this, though..." The Special Jounin protested feebly. 

"Don't worry about it," she muttered. "I'll just finish off whatever you have left." Ignoring his look of disbelief, she plunked herself down on the chair, added five ice cubes, two packets of sugar and three creamers into her coffee, tasted the concotion, winced, and added another packet of sugar. Scowling, she quickly chugged down half the mug. "I don't really like coffee, but I need it to stay awake," she offered by way of explanation, then began to devour her morning meal at an alarming rate. 

Hayate stared at her blankly for a few moments, then, shaking his head slightly, began to eat as well. 

Before long, they had both finished. Despite what the Jounin had said earlier, he had finished almost everything. She cleared away the plates and sat down in front of him again, and they sat in silence for a few moments, comfortably sipping their coffee. (She noted that he did, in fact, drink his coffee black.) 

However, the silence had to be broken, and after a while she did so. "So." She started. "I suppose one of the reasons that you are here is to brief me on the agenda of the meeting. Please start now, then."   
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

_A/N: Citrus-ginseng tea really does add spice to your coffee. It gives it a slight tangy taste so it's not just all bitter, bitter coffee =_=;; I like citrus but I dislike ginseng even though it's really good for your body, so find a good mixture of citrus-ginseng that you like. Depending on how exotic a taste you want the coffee to have, add or subtract the amount of instant tea mixture you put in. I usually go by trial-and-error. XD If all else fails, claim it's a rare, exotic Indian tea that does wonder for the body and spirit so your coffee-testers feel obliged to appreciate it XDDDDD _I heard somewhere like girls like to talk while eating, while guys like to finish eating first, then talk. I just thought that was interesting. 


	17. Chapter 16: Food for Thought

**_A/N:_**_ Dear _MachiGai_: Ah yes, the Harry Potter book! OO! I've been taking my Japanese neighbors for granted so long that I forgot that--whoops! That wasn't supposed to leak out. cough >> I mean, that was a very legitimate loophole you pointed out and I shall correct it to the best of my abilities immediately! sweatdrop  
Yes indeedy, the Japanese "n" is sometimes very soft and hard to catch. Yep, the _-sama _suffix is not one you would normally use, but that was intentional. Though, personally, I think the fact that Kakashi is _the_ formidable Sharingan copy-ninja would be enough to incite a deeper tone of respect in most people, but the protagonist's use of _"-sama" _was just something to make her character a bit different by making her use overtly-formal tones even when it's not needed. Again, thanks for your helpful review! I love how you manage to catch the things I miss _

_Dear _Steel Jaguar_: Yay, thanks for the tips! Though the kanji for "no" isn't always the one for "field", and "no" is really only part of the two kanji characters that make up the word meaning "field"...right? By itself, the kanji "no" in the compound kanji "field" actually means "wild", doesn't it? Yeah, the literal translation of Sharingan just sounds so funny to me for some reason, so I didn't bother to put it, since it's a Naruto-specific specialized term that can't be found in normal Japanese dictionaries XD _

_Yes, this chapter is awfully short, it was originally connected to the next chapter, but the next chapter got too long and is giving me some problems. My apologies for the awfully long delay. Perhaps entertain yourself with my other Naruto fanfics at the moment? ;;;_

_CHAPTER 16: Food for Thought_

Shikamaru glared at a small burn mark on the table--probably from one of Asuma's cigarettes--as if it would surrender the answers to all the mysteries of the universe if he glared at it long enough.

Unsurprisingly, it wasn't working.

"This sucks." he complained, just as another unsolved mystery of the universe stepped into the teahouse.

"But you say that for _everything_!" Yamanaka Ino rebuked cheerfully, slapping him playfully on the back. "Maybe things wouldn't suck as much if you actually got off your lazy bum once in a while and _did_ something! --Right, Chouji?" she asked as another boy their age came in.

Chouji, their "plump" but easygoing teammate, just smiled benignly and stuffed another fistful of potato chips into his mouth.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Shikamaru muttered. "Hey, Ino..." he said suddenly, "Can I ask you something?" He'd been thinking over the matter for hours and still wasn't getting any results, so he might as well ask someone.

"What?" the blonde girl asked curiously. "You usually just ask me instead of asking if you could ask me--what is it?"

"What do you think about...well, alternate dimensions?" he asked, frowning.

Ino raised a blonde eyebrow. "What? Alternate dimensions?" she laughed derisively. "Why on earth are you wondering about alternate dimensions? And here I was thinking you're going to ask me for advice on some girl--"

Shikamaru abruptly cut in, a hint of annoyance in his voice. "I'm serious. What do you think about it? About the possibility of alternate dimensions?"

Ino studied him for a moment, before finally shrugging. "I dunno," she said breezily. "And I don't really care about alternate dimensions and whatnot--unless I happen to be married to Sasuke in one of them," she sighed dreamily, a silly grin appearing on her face.

Shikamaru sighed in exasperation. He _knew_ he shouldn't have asked in the first place. "Women!" he muttered. _What do they see in that guy, anyway?_

Not that he cared.

"Ino, you're drooling," Chouji said cheerfully, munching happily on a mouthful of barbeque-flavored potato chips.

* * *


	18. Chapter 17: The Next Move

**_A/N: _**Mmrrewh, this school year marks the beginning of the 5th year that I'm taking Japanese :D But this teacher is grading harder since it's an IBH class and no longer giving so much extra credit, so that means no more getting over 100... T-T Ah well, hopefully I'll be able to learn more this year. Well, here's the next chapter as promised, I'll try to pick up the pace...some...er. But I managed to update all 3 of my Naruto ficthings within 1 week despite all the school and extracirricular responsibilities! So there's hope yet! Oh yes. Fic starts to deviate from the official storyline here .. I'm sorry.

_CHAPTER 17: The Next Move_

* * *

She peeked inside. 

The conference room was small and circular, with just enough room to comfortably fit the twenty-odd Jounins present. The only peice of furniture other than the ceiling light was a long rectangular wooden table set against the wall directly opposite her. Behind it were three wooden, high-backed chairs that seated the Hokage and his two advisors.

She knew that the two used to be the Third Hokage's teammates, but couldn't recall their names. The old woman's name was flower-something, she remembered. _Hibana_. That was it. Or maybe it was _Kohana_. She couldn't be sure. As for the name of the bespectacled old man, she couldn't remember if her life depended on it.

Hayate was still talking to the Jounin (or Chuunin, she really couldn't be sure since their uniforms were the same) outside the door. Conversing in low tones, neither seemed to be paying any attention to her, so she went back to looking at the room through the partially open door. Having inspected the room itself, she began to count the number of occupants she could recognize on sight.

Kakashi was the first one she noticed, with his horrid gray mop of hair sticking up in every possible direction. She wondered if he purposely infused it with chakra, or _something_, so it would be that way--_Anti-gravity no jutsu?_ She thought. _Who knows._

Kurenai and Anko, being the only females in the room (asides from the old woman) and the only ones not wearing the Jounin uniform, were also spotted with ease.

A curl of smoke gave away Asuma's location, and next to him was a familiar-looking Jounin with glasses. Behind him sat the imposing figure of Morino Ibiki. His scars made her wince and quickly move her eyes a few more places to the left, where there was a ninja who, appearantly, had his _hitai-ate_ on _backwards_. She didn't need to see the dirty-blonde hair or the long stick-like thing dangling out of the man's smirking mouth to recognize Shiranui Genma. She squinted at the thing, trying to figure out exactly _what_ it was, but promptly gave up as Genma was talking to another Jounin beside him, causing the thing--whatever it was--to keep moving up and down, right and left, around and around and making her dizzy as hell.

She looked around a bit more and was surprised to realize that the dynamic figure of Maito Gai was missing. She checked again just to be sure: nope, there wasn't a sparkling smile or a single bowl haircut in sight. _Maybe he's hospitalized?_ she wondered doubtfully. She didn't have a chance to give it more thought, for Hayate had suddenly finished talking and was now gently pushing her through the door.

The first thing she noticed was that everyone had stopped talking to stare at her. The sudden silence was unnerving, and the sheer number of gazes directed at her made her extremely uncomfortable. What increased her discomfort even more was the _nature_ of some of these gazes.

Some were staring in pure curiousity. Some gave her friendly smiles, while others appraised her with suspicion through narrowed eyes. But some looked angry, and some-

She gulped as she realized that some were actually regarding her with open _hostility_. She didn't know why they were staring at her so furiously-it's not as if she could possibly be seen as a _threat_...could she?

She wondered how she must appear to them: a slender, 16-year old girl with black hair pulled back into a ponytail, uneven bangs framing a pale face that had seen too little of the sun, and dressed simply in an unobstrusive manner.

At least, she _thought_ it was simple. Proper etiquette dictated formal wear for important meetings; but she had none such stuff among her own belongings and, though hesitant of wearing the clothes found in the closet, had finally gave in to temptation and grabbed a yukata, sashed by a standard _obi_, and the navy blue sandals she'd found at the bottom of the closet that _everyone_ seemed to wear.

The yukata was a dullish-looking white with a bit of gray trim, and the obi a boring dark blue; both were plain and didn't have any markings or pattern on them. The only thing untraditional about it was that the yukata ended just a few inches above her knee; probably some new summer variation to make it cooler and more marketable during the warm weather that seemed to dominate Konoha village for most of the year.

She didn't have any weapons, visible or hidden, on her person--only the pocket Japanese-English English-Japanese dictionary clutched tightly in her hands. All in all, rather impossible to be seen as a potential threat, but the glares directed at her never wavered.

It was, quite simply, nerve-wracking.

She'd pulled her share of pranks in the past and faced angry teachers and parents threatening to lock her up until she was thirty, but that was _vastly_ different from having at least five or six different people staring at her with a palpable murderous intent. She gulped again and took a step back-right onto Hayate's foot.

"_Mou shiwake gozaimasen deshita_!" she immediately blurted out.

Thankfully, her minor _faux pas_ seemed to have broken the tension in the room as well as the eerie silence, and she suddenly found herself being dissected and examined through conversational means.

"Hn. It's just a kid," Genma commented disinterestedly above the revived chatter. She suddenly recieved a very strong impression that he would be notably more interested only if she were at least five years older and at least five inches more endowed in...certain body parts.

"She would look just like another student at the Academy if she were a bit younger," another Jounin was saying.

"Hmph, never trust an innocent face," Ibiki was muttering to Asuma. "The cuter they look, the more you can't trust them." However, he wasn't looking at her, but rather kept glancing in Anko's direction.

She briefly wondered which she should be more amused at--the fact that Ibiki had just indirectly called her "cute", or the fact that his statement was quite obviously referring to the bouncy hyperactive kunoichi Anko.

Right then, however, the Hokage cleared his throat, effectively gathering the attention of everyone in the room. Silence immediately settled across the room once more.

The meeting had started.

Through the course of the next 40 or so minutes, she found herself being asked about everything from her personal history to her likes and dislikes, her school, her house, her family, country, culture, customs, and politics, from topics as broad as religion to topics as mundane as how many pets she had (none, except for some coachroaches). In addition, they were also very interested in determining how much she knew about the people and places here. It was a rather long and tasking process in which both her memory and her limited ability to speak Japanese were sorely tested.

In the end, what was decided was that a team of Chuunins would accompany her back to her world for purposes of "research". She was given vague sketchy details of a missing civilian that might have accidentally gone to "her part of the universe" and was instructed to guide around the "escorts" they sent her. _A convenient excuse to keep an eye on me and spy around at the same time,_ she supposed. A mission that originally was to be delegated to Kakashi and his team of genins as they were the "pioneers" of the "First Crossing", but due to the imminent Chuunin exams, the Hokage decided to turn the mission over to some Chuunins instead, and asked her to pick out a pair of Chuunin-level ninjas she felt would most fit in easily in her home world.

As for which two Chuunins she had in mind, she had no doubt of her perfect candidates.

* * *

"Soon...my plan shall be executed..." the cold voice hissed out. 

"Indeed, Orochimaru-sama," a sly, servile voice replied. Light glinted off a pair of glasses resting on the nose of a gray-haired boy. "Our agents have reached the destinated cities already. I believe they will soon acquire the two people you desire."

"Very well, Kabuto. I know I can depend on you."

"Of course, Orochimaru-sama." The boy bowed left, the evil smirk on his face mirroring that of his black-haired master's.

A deep, mirthless chuckle filled the room. "Who wants to bother with insignificant Konoha, when I have an entire new _universe_ to conquer here?" Orochimaru laughed derisively. "Nevertheless, it will be interesting to watch those fools crumble, while my new empire...awaits me _here_." A pale smooth hand slammed down on the cover of...

...an issue of _Seventeen_.

* * *

. 

_A/N: MUHAHAHAH. I leave you to wonder. _

I know that a standard Chuunin team is made of 4 ninjas, but for the purposes of stealth and gathering information, involving too many people would be counter-effective, so I reduced the number to two.

Note on storyline: _many kind reviewers have mentioned that the storyline moves at a rather slow pace. :sweatdrops: I'm sorry; it's hard for me to organize my thoughts and decide which scenes are, and aren't needed...I just really want to develop every teensy bit and peice .; This isn't really an _action_ genre fic as it is an _adventure_; though, and in a weak defense, I'd just like to say that I don't really like to rush things, and I think that finding disaster and saving the world in the course of a week is very unlikely. _

What with the insane amount of characters I plan to incorporate into this thing, I suppose it must move at a snail's pace, eh...?  
Er...well...this is not like the kind of fic where two often-paired up characters meet up, suddenly fall madly in love, and are having sex and exchanging marriage vows by the day's end-while those kind of fiction can be perfectly fine and dandy it just seems rather unrealistic to me and it's just not how I operate XD;

So, in the end, I suppose the conclusion becomes that this is a very verbose and drawn-out story, meant for those with patience T.T therefore...to what readers I have, I kindly beg of you to please bear with me. P

Obi: name of the belt used on Japanese kimono/yukata  
_Mou shiwake gozaimasen deshita:_ very formal way of saying "sorry". English equivalent would probably be something along the lines of "I'm terribly sorry (please forgive me)."


End file.
